


linaria bipartia

by pillowcreek



Category: The Bridge (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Grayromantic Roger Kaplan, Jealousy, Language of Flowers, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Multi, Nonbinary Bollard (The Bridge Podcast), Other, Pining, Polyamory, Sharing Clothes, Slow Burn, Thanksgiving, Trans Bertie Renard, Trans Etta Perrault, Trans Kate Burnham, Trans Roger Kaplan, Unrequited Love, discussions of mental health, text conversations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillowcreek/pseuds/pillowcreek
Summary: Sometimes, the most mundane encounters are the ones that will change your life forever.A story about falling in love, friendship, and all the crazy things that can happen in less than a year.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S HERE IT'S HERE IT'S FINALLY HERE 
> 
> This *gestures wildly* is my Nano fic! I've been writing it for a month and I've had the idea for about a month and a half and it is... probably the most ambitious thing I have ever undertaken. Because this is gonna be a long one. 
> 
> I've got the first 14 or so chapters done already, so I just have to edit them and then I'll be posting them gradually over the next few days. Depending on what works best, I may be posting them two or three chapters at a time, or just one at a time. We'll see how quickly I can edit them what with school and everything. 
> 
> I really really hope you all enjoy this and have just as much fun reading it as I had writing it! I worked really really hard on this and it's still a long way from over, so if you read it please give me some feedback!

The menstruation products aisle at the grocery store was always a difficult one for Bertie to navigate. 

It wasn’t like it was unusual to see a man in the aisle, per say. Plenty of guys went there to pick up products for their girlfriends. But as a trans man it gave Bertie a fair bit of anxiety: what if he didn’t pass well enough? What if he passed well enough that people could see that he was trying to pass, but not well enough that he was stealth? What if he was too fast grabbing what he needed and it seemed odd to those around him? 

Now, it wasn’t like Bertie was expecting someone to try and start something in the middle of Zehr’s. But for someone with already off the charts levels of anxiety, he didn’t really need these extra worries. 

But he had developed a system over the years - which, yes, included calling it the “menstruation products aisle” because “feminine hygiene products?” Fuck you. He’d typically wait until the aisle was clear and then casually walk by and drop what he needed into his basket as he went. But today. Oh no, today the universe just wasn’t letting him have that. 

Instead, the universe had delivered him _the most annoying girl in the universe._ Who spent ten minutes staring at pads? Who the heck needs ten fucking minutes to stare at pads? Was she okay? Was she dead? Was she dead but just hadn’t collapsed yet? Was she stoned? Did she think the green of the packaging was more weed? 

What the FUCK, dude?! 

Bertie decided to just bite the bullet and join the girl in the aisle. His initial plan no longer an option, he stared at the pads for a few minutes, trying to act like he had no idea what he was looking for: like he was trying to figure out what would be best for his girlfriend because he was definitely cis and definitely didn’t know what was the best option. 

And that was when he noticed the girl shaking. 

“Uh, are you okay?” Bertie asked her. 

The girl looked over at him and Bertie cursed internally. Of course this annoying girl would be pretty. Her eyes were wide in surprise and were a beautiful copper colour. Her skin was light brown and her dark curly hair was tied back in two tight braids. She bit her lip as she looked him up and down nervously. 

“Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m uh…” She looked nervously over her shoulder and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket with a sigh. “Actually um… I’m kind of stumped. Y’see my boyfriend sent me off to buy him some pads because his cramps are so bad he can barely move, like he almost threw up this morning, he’s miserable, but uh, I’m also trans, so I have no idea what I’m looking for and so please don’t kill me but could you maybe help?” 

Bertie stared at her in shock. A trans girl. With a trans boyfriend. What were the odds? 

The girl seemed to be getting antsy as he didn’t answer her. “Look, I get it if you don’t want to help. I’ll just uh, go and stand over by the chicken while you do your thing and we don’t need to have a problem, okay?” 

“No!” Bertie said quickly and the girl flinched. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I…” He laughed slightly. “Sorry, I was just surprised. I… wasn’t really expecting to meet someone else trans here. Especially not someone who also has a trans partner.” 

The girl’s face lit up. “You’re trans too? No way!” 

“Yeah. I was actually here to get stuff myself.” 

“Oh! Is that why you kept walking by the aisle?” the girl asked. 

“Oh shoot, was I scaring you?” Bertie said, his eyes widening. He hadn’t even realized that repeatedly walking by the same aisle might have seemed a little creepy.

“Just a little,” the girl said, laughing slightly. “I thought you were stalking me. And then when you came over-“ 

“I _really_ scared you.” Bertie moaned. “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry! I didn’t even think of that!” 

The girl grinned up at him. “It’s fine. Now that I know you’re not some creepy stalker but actually just a very clueless fellow trans person, I like you a hell of a lot more.” 

Bertie gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m Bertie.” 

“Etta. Is that your full name, or did you go the nickname-as-your-name route?” 

“Bertrand. It’s kind of old man sounding though so-“ 

“Well Bertrand,” Etta said and Bertie instantly threw any hopes of getting her to shorten it out the window. He got the sense that it would end the same way every time. “What’s the best option to get? Because I do not understand _anything_ that these boxes are saying.” 

“Why didn’t you just text your boyfriend to ask him what he wanted?” Bertie asked, passing her a box of pads. 

“He said he was going to try to sleep while I was out and I didn’t want to disturb him. Plus it just seems like such a stupid thing to be confused by.” 

“Not really. I mean, there’s people out there who think that you can just hold your period, so you’re really above average.”

Etta laughed. “Thanks.” 

“Oh, but you’re missing the most important thing!” Bertie said. “And not realizing that you’re missing it _does_ make you a shitty girlfriend, sorry.” 

Etta crossed her arms, amused. She was very pretty when she smiled, and Bertie felt a flash of guilt in his stomach as he realized the thought. “Oh? And what essential, perfect girlfriend making object did I forget?” 

“Chocolate.” 

Her mouth dropped open slightly. “Oh my gosh. You’re right. I’m a terrible girlfriend.” 

Bertie patted her shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay. You’re learning.” 

They headed over to the candy aisle together. 

“So how long have you two been dating?” Bertie asked. 

“About two months?” Etta said. “But we were friends for years before that. It’s a pretty sweet deal.” 

“Sounds like it.” 

“How about you?” Etta gave him a small nudge. “Got a special person in your life?” 

Bertie laughed somewhat bitterly. “No, no, definitely not.” 

“Aw, why not? You’re so cute and you know to bring your sad partner chocolate. You’re _obviously_ a catch.” 

“I think there’s more to being a catch than that.” 

“Of course there is. You also need to be able to make amazing mac and cheese.” 

“And the boyfriend?” 

“The _best_ mac and cheese. Seriously. I would marry him for that alone.” 

“I’m getting the sense that you have terrible standards,” Bertie said. 

“Excuse you,” Etta said, grabbing five chocolate bars and a packet of Skittles off the shelf. “I have the best standards.” 

“You literally just said that you’d marry someone for their mac and cheese.” 

“You haven’t had it so therefore you have no right to judge me.” 

Bertie laughed. “You’ve got a point there.” 

“You should though,” Etta said slowly. 

“What?” 

“We don’t know any trans people aside from each other. You-“ she gestured at Bertie- “are a trans person. We should become friends.” 

Bertie didn’t even need to consider it. “That sounds like an awesome idea. And I can even hook you up with - gasp! - another trans person.” 

She fake gasped. “Another trans person? There’s more of us?” 

“Yup. And she’s even a trans woman.” 

Etta let out a small happy squeal and Bertie grinned. There was something about her that was just kind of addicting, like he couldn’t look away or else he’d miss something. She was just kind of really adorable. 

“Okay okay, give me your phone number before we go through check out because I _cannot_ lose you,” she said. 

They quickly swapped numbers before heading out. Later on the bus ride home, Bertie rested his head against the window and tried to keep himself from smiling like an idiot. Not only did he have the promise of two new friends in his future, but they were both trans. They were people like him. People who would get him. One who might even get him more than Kate did. 

It was a lot to be excited for. 

* * *

Bertie waited until after supper to text Etta. 

_hey, how’s your boyfriend doing?_

**he’s being mopey but cute**

_is it even possible to be both of those things?_

Etta didn’t text him a response. Instead she sent him a photo, presumably as proof that her statement was correct. And well… 

It really was. 

The photo was of a very cute boy. He had messy dark brown hair, brown skin, brown eyes, and glasses. He was lying with his head in what was presumably Etta’s lap, and was glaring up at the camera with a look of mixed annoyance and adoration. It made Bertie’s heart leap into his throat and he found himself wishing that somebody would look at him that way. 

_okay, i believe you_

_you really lucked out there. got yourself a cute one_

**enh**

**he’s only that cute right now because he’s flustered over me wearing his hoodie**

Another photo came through, this time of Etta with her face half hidden in the hood of a gray sweater. Bertie felt his stomach do a flip and he didn’t blame Etta’s boyfriend for being flustered. _He_ was flustered and it wasn’t even his hoodie. 

_Dammit, how are they_ both _so cute?_ he thought. How was he supposed to be friends with them? They were too cute! He’d be dying the entire time! 

_very cute,_ he texted back. 

**thanks**

**hey, so when did you want to meet up?**

_this tuesday at one work for you?_

**sounds good. there’s a coffee shop near campus, let’s meet there.**

Bertie switched over to his chat with Kate to send her the details. He’d texted her earlier that afternoon to ask if she was in and her response had been more than enthusiastic. 

_we’re meeting them at that coffee shop near campus you like and won’t shut up about_

**_sweeeeeeet_**  

_okay but seriously they’re the cutest people ever. like super cute. prepare yourself._

**_bertie they’re just people. i think i can handle some reasonably attractive humans._ **

_we’ll see_


	2. Chapter 2

Tuesday came after what felt like forever. Bertie had texted Etta every day since they met. They had an instant connection: Bertie could say whatever he wanted and Etta would get it. It was easier than talking to Kate in a way, even though they had been friends for much longer. 

But eventually Tuesday did come and they could finally meet in person again. Bertie shifted nervously in his chair, drumming his fingers against the side of his coffee cup. Kate sat next to him at the table, calmly sipping her coffee as they waited for the other two to show up. 

“What if they don’t come?” Bertie said. 

Kate gave him a gentle smile. “Bertie. They’re gonna show. You’ve been texting this girl almost constantly since you met. You really think she’s going to back out of getting the chance to see you again?” 

“What if it’s just a very elaborate hoax though?” he said. “What if she’s not even trans?” 

Kate laughed. “Bertie. Come on. You really think this girl would pretend to be trans and text you for three days just so that she can, what? Make you wait at a coffee shop with your best friend for half an hour?” 

“Forty-five minutes.” 

“What?” 

“We got here fifteen minutes early,” Bertie said. “So if we were to be polite and wait half an hour after the meeting time before leaving, it will be forty-five minutes that we’ll be waiting here.” 

“Oh my gosh, Bertie.” Kate ran a hand down her face in exasperation. “Seriously? We’ve been here five minutes. It’ll be another five minutes at least before we can expect them to show up. Relax.” 

“But what if they don’t show?” Bertie said. 

“They’re gonna show.” 

They did show. 

A couple of minutes before one, Etta walked through the door of the coffee shop, followed by the boy from the picture. Etta spotted Bertie a few seconds late and gave him an enthusiastic wave. She said something quietly to the boy and he nodded before going to line up. Etta walked over to their table. 

“You brought your friend!” she said. 

“I did promise you a trans girl.” 

Etta smiled and held her hand out to Kate. “I’m Etta.” 

Kate took it. “Kate. Bertie won’t shut up about you.” 

Bertie whined in embarrassment as Etta beamed. “Really? That’s fantastic, I haven’t shut up about him either.” 

“Really?” Bertie squeaked. 

“Yeah, it’s gotten a little annoying,” Etta’s boyfriend said as he reached their table. He handed Etta a mug of coffee before sitting down next to her. 

Etta elbowed him in the side. “Shut up, asshole.” 

He shrugged. “Do you ever talk about anything else?” 

“Uh, yeah? All the time?” 

“Really? Because I _timed you_ and you spent-“ 

“Okay, so this is Roger,” Etta said quickly, interrupting him. “And he’s going to be single if he keeps talking.” 

“I’m Bertie,” he said, giving Roger the friendliest smile he could manage. 

He looked unimpressed. “I know.” 

Bertie sunk slightly in his chair but Kate looked amused. “I’m Kate,” she said. “Which I’m sure you didn’t know.” 

“It’s… nice to meet you.” 

Etta rolled her eyes. “So Kate. Are you at the university?” 

“Yeah. I’m studying toxicology,” she said. 

“So you’re basically an assassin in training?” 

Kate laughed. “Yeah. Basically.” 

“That sounds like the best major. It’s definitely way cooler than communications,” Etta said. 

“Hey, communications sounds pretty neat. You can use that for a lot of different stuff.” 

“Except for poisoning your enemies.” 

“Etta, you’re not poisoning Frank,” Roger said. 

Etta whined slightly. “You never let me do anything fun.” 

“No, I never let you do anything illegal. There’s a difference.” 

“Fine.” Etta turned back to Kate. “Will you poison him for me then?” 

Kate laughed while Roger just rolled his eyes. “Sorry, but I’d like to stay out of prison, thanks,” she said.  

“Eugh, definitely,” Bertie said. “Those cells are way too small. And you have to pee in front of everyone? I’d get a UTI in the first week.” 

Roger put down his coffee slowly. “Okay, I think I’m done with that.” 

Bertie gave him a sheepish grin. “Sorry.” 

He only rolled his eyes. 

“No, I think Bertie’s got a point there,” Etta said. “I think I’m beginning to rethink my life of crime.” 

“I’m sorry, beginning to?” Roger said at the same time that Bertie said, “Happy to be of assistance.” 

“You’ll just have to get back at… what was his name?” Kate asked. 

“Frank,” said Etta. 

“You’ll just have to get back at him some other way,” she said. “Like, maybe putting jello in his shoes.” 

“Ooo, I like the way you think. Please tell me more of your evil plans,” Etta said, leaning in eagerly. 

Kate began rambling off a few different ideas while Roger buried his face in his arms. “This was the worst idea…” he groaned. 

“Aw come on, we’re not so bad,” Bertie said. 

Roger glanced up at him and Bertie felt a small jolt of electricity surge through his stomach. His eyes were the same shade of brown as an oak tree. Bertie felt as though he might drown in them. 

“I’m not so sure of that,” Roger said. “We’ve been here, what? Five minutes? You’ve already talked about urine and she’s currently giving Etta even more ways to be a giant human disaster. You haven’t even reached “slightly not that bad” on the scale yet.” 

Bertie’s ears heated up. “I mentioned urine once, very briefly. And Etta doesn’t seem like that much of a human disaster. I’m sure Kate can’t ruin her that much.” 

“She showed up to my apartment with her jacket on inside out. Because she was distracted. By her own thoughts.” 

“But that’s endearing?” Bertie said. 

Roger snorted. “Yeah. Something like that.” 

Bertie smiled. “So how’d you two meet?” 

“We had a class together in first year,” he said, shrugging. 

“So you’re in school too?” 

“Yeah. History.” 

“Hm. It’s kind of weird being the only one not in school.” 

“Yeah?” Roger said. “What are you doing instead?” 

“Oh, I uh… I run my parents’ flower shop,” Bertie said, staring down at the table and blushing slightly. “I know it’s not exactly a masculine activity, but-“ 

“So what?” Bertie glanced back up to see Roger looking annoyed. “Just because you’re a guy doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy things that are more stereotypically feminine. You like flowers; big deal. Anyone who doesn’t like that can go fuck themselves.” 

Bertie smiled slightly. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” 

“You can give them a nice bundle of thorny roses to shove up their ass,” Etta said, drawn to their conversation by Roger’s slightly raised voice. 

Bertie laughed. “Or a nice cactus.” 

“See? That’s the right spirit,” Roger said. 

“Gender roles are just bullshit,” Kate said. “Like, we’re practically the prime examples that they are, and yet people still keep trying to shove us into them. They don’t even make sense. Like this pretty thing that smells nice isn’t allowed to be enjoyed by boys even though it’s fucking awesome? What sense does that make?” 

“Like you would never say that someone’s not allowed to eat chocolate if you’re a boy. It’s just something awesome that makes you happy. Let people live,” Etta said. 

“Actually people do try to police that,” Bertie said. 

“Wait seriously?” 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve had mothers come in with their kids and they’ll buy them chocolate at the end because they didn’t destroy the store but then they get mad if their son wants chocolate that has pink on the wrapper. There was even this one lady that told her kid that milk chocolate was a “boy’s candy” and so she couldn’t have it, which is just complete bullshit. Milk’s the best type of chocolate, every kid deserves to experience it.” 

“Are you insane?!” Etta said, louder than necessary. The couple at the table next to them gave them an annoyed look. 

“Sorry!” Kate stage whispered. 

Etta lowered her voice and leaned across the table towards Bertie. “Are you nuts?!” she said. “The best chocolate is obviously white chocolate!” 

“Uh, no? It’s milk. I sell the stuff, therefore my opinion’s the right one,” he said. 

“Nope. I’m sorry Bertie, but you’re shit at your job if you think that.” 

“Okay first of all that’s not even the main part of my job-“ 

“Well you’re the one who brought it up-“ 

“-and second of all, you’re the one who has no taste buds-“ 

“-my taste buds are perfectly functional thank you very much-“ 

“-are you sure because apparently been eating garbage for years-“ 

“-at least I’m not eating _toxic sludge_ -“ 

“That’s not a comeback Etta, you just admitted that it’s garbage,” Roger said calmly. 

Etta huffed as Bertie held his hand out to Roger for a high five. He did not look impressed. “I’m not high fiving you for that.” 

“Because you agree that I’m right?” Etta said hopefully. 

“Nope. You’re both wrong.” 

Etta pouted. “What’s the point of a boyfriend if he won’t even take your side in arguments against strangers?” 

“So what’s the right answer?” Kate asked. 

“Hm?” Roger glanced over at her. 

“If they’re both wrong, what’s the best type of chocolate?” 

“Dark,” he said. 

Etta groaned. “Of course that’s your answer…” 

“Wait, why of course?” Bertie said. 

“He only likes things that are as bitter as he is,” Etta said, rolling her eyes. 

“Eugh, why would you do that to yourself? Bitter stuff is disgusting.” 

“What? And you only eat sickly sweet stuff?” Roger said. 

Bertie shrugged. “It’s delicious.” 

Roger pulled a face. “You have terrible taste.” 

“What about you, Kate? What’s your favourite type of chocolate?” Etta asked. 

“Whatever’s about to go bad and Bertie needs to get rid of,” she said. 

“Wait, you give away your chocolate for free if it’s about to go bad?” Etta said, staring at Bertie. 

He shrugged. “Sure. I mean, it’s only going to be wasted otherwise.” 

“Marry me.” 

“Okay, you need to stop trying to marry people for their food,” Bertie said. 

“Oh my gosh, who did she try to marry when you met her?” Roger said. “Please tell me it wasn’t the person giving out samples again. That was really awkward to explain.” 

“You, actually,” he said. 

Roger gave Etta an exasperated look. “The mac and cheese again? Really?” 

Kate laughed. “Wait, is this a _trend?_ ” 

“She proposes every time I make her mac and cheese. It’s getting kind of tiring.” 

“Hey, I bought you a ring,” Etta said. 

“It was from a toy vending machine. You spent ten minutes and two dollars trying to get it.” 

“It was still a ring.” 

“It was made out of plastic.” 

“It was a ring.” 

“Does she at least propose in a romantic way?” Bertie asked. 

“Oh yeah, it’s always super romantic,” Roger said dryly. “Once she wasn’t making herself food so I brought over a giant batch of it. She was wearing a bear onesie and hiding in blankets. Super cute.” 

“That sounds adorable.” 

“Oh no, that wasn’t sarcasm,” Etta said. “He genuinely thinks my bear onesie is the cutest thing. Because it is. It’s the one thing he’s right about.” 

“So you two _are_ dating, right?” Kate asked. 

“Yep. I know, we don’t act like that. The strange thing is everyone kept asking us if we were dating before? And now that we actually are, nobody believes us,” she said. 

“That’s because you keep asking what the point of me is every five seconds,” Roger muttered. 

“I did that before too.” 

“Hey Bertie, why does nobody ever ask us if we’re dating?” Kate said. 

“It’s because you look like a giant lesbian,” he said. 

“It’s true,” Etta said. “You radiate lesbian vibes. Wait, are you _not_ a lesbian?” 

“Nope, I am,” Kate said. “Honestly, I’m kind of proud of the lesbian vibes. Makes picking up girls easier.” 

“And how many girls have you picked up in the last year?” Bertie said. 

“Hey, I said _easier._ I didn’t say I was good at it suddenly.” 

“Wait, you mean you don’t have girls throwing themselves at you every five minutes?” Etta said, surprised. “But you’re hot! And cool!” 

“She’s also not smooth! And very very blushy!” Bertie said. 

“I tried asking out the girl I liked last year. I think my exact words were, “hey, do you wanna go see a video? movie? moving picture thing? with me? like in a romantic way?” I was smooth until then though!” Kate said, kicking Bertie’s foot lightly under the table. 

“You were super obvious about how into her you were, that’s what you were. Maybe a little smooth if you practised on me for six hours first.” 

“Like you’re any better.” 

“Excuse you, I don’t ask people out. Who would I ask out?” 

“That’s right, you don’t know anybody besides me. Okay, shut up.” 

“So how do you two know each other?” Etta asked. 

“We went to high school together,” Bertie said. “She protected me from her terrifying cousin.” 

“She’s not that bad,” Kate said to Etta. “He’s just scared easily.” 

“She’s a scary person!” Bertie said. “She knows how to beat people up.” 

“So do I.” 

“Yeah, and you’re terrifying.” 

“Aw, Bertie. So many compliments today.” 

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment…” Etta said. 

Kate shrugged. “It works. As long as he’s still hanging out with me and not actively terrified, it means I’m not that scary.” 

“Yeah, it really just means that I know she could kick my ass in a fight,” Bertie said. 

“You could probably hold your own for a few seconds at least.” 

“Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence.” 

“So how’d you meet the girl to ask out?” Etta said. “I mean, obviously I’m not looking, but I always want to meet more queer girls on campus.” 

“I met her through the campus queer group, we both volunteer there,” Kate said. “Makes a little awkward now, but…” 

“Wait, there’s a queer group on campus?” Etta said, staring at her in shock. 

“Uh, yeah?” Kate and Roger both said. 

“You knew about it?” Etta turned her shocked gaze to her boyfriend. 

“Yeah, they have fliers and stuff up around campus.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” 

He shrugged. “Slipped my mind?” 

“You’re the worst.” Etta turned back to Kate. “So do you guys hold events and stuff then?” 

“Oh yeah, all the time. You should come to our meetings if you’re interested. The first one of the semester is next Thursday,” she said. 

Etta made a happy squealing noise. “Oh man, that sounds awesome! I can’t wait!” 

“I take it you’re not interested?” Kate said to Roger. 

He grimaced and Etta laughed. “Yeah, Roger’s not really what you’d call a “people person.” Or a “talker.” Or a “functional human being.”” 

“Is anyone the last one?” Bertie muttered and Etta grinned at him. 

“So what do you do instead of talking with people?” Kate said. 

“Schoolwork,” Roger said. “And I go hiking on the weekends.” 

Kate’s face lit up. “No way!” 

“Yeah, it’s the only exercise you can do while still wearing a binder.” 

“I go hiking too! We should go together.” 

Roger looked at her for a few seconds, sizing her up. “Yeah, sounds fun.” 

“Did you just say that something sounds fun?” Etta said with a small gasp. 

“It _sounds_ fun. Doesn’t mean it will be.” 

“If you make him have fun, I will actually marry you,” Etta said to Kate. 

“Oh my god, stop proposing to people!” Roger said. 

* * *

Kate grabbed Bertie’s arm on the way to the bus stop and he rested his hand on top of hers. “Okay, you seriously underplayed how cute that girl is,” she said, slightly breathlessly. 

“I thought you said you could handle an attractive human,” he teased. 

“Uh, that’s not an attractive human. That was a literal goddess,” Kate said. “Did you see her?” 

“I know, I know. It’s unfair.” 

“Who allowed her to exist being so cute and perfect?” Kate groaned. “And she’s in a relationship! This is totally unfair!” 

“In a relationship with another hot person. Like, did they have to both be attractive? Isn’t there some rule about there only being one attractive partner? They’re breaking that rule, Kate. It’s so not fair.” 

“And I told her I’d hang out with her,” Kate said, rambling on like Bertie hadn’t said anything at all. “Why did I say that? I mean, I want to hang out with her! She’s fantastic! But I just _know_ I’m going to fall in love with her and make it awkward and just noooo.” 

“How do you think I’ve felt for the past four days?” Bertie said. “Her face. Is so. Cute. I want to pinch her cheeks.” 

“Then you can’t date her either. Remember your rule about only one hot partner? I’m pretty sure there’s another one about only one partner with pinchable cheeks.” 

“My cheeks are _not_ pinchable!” Bertie said and regretted it a second later when Kate reached up to pinch his cheeks. 

“Ooo, you’re so cute!” she cooed. “Look at your cute little face!” 

“Kate…” Bertie whined. “Stop it…” 

She did. “My point rests.” 

“Well it’s not like you could date her either,” he said. Kate raised her eyebrows. “The first rule?” Bertie said. “You’re both hot. It’s not allowed.” 

“So neither of us can date her,” Kate said. 

“Not like it’s really an option,” Bertie muttered. 

“And cue the second stupid thing I said.” Kate sighed. “Why did you let me talk?” 

“I don’t know, I think you two would get along really well,” Bertie said. “You both have that kickass sort of vibe.” 

“Bertie I can’t hang out with the boyfriend of a girl I’m attracted to.” 

“Just don’t think of him as her boyfriend. Although I would recommend not talking about Etta, since you can barely go five seconds without talking about how perfect she is.” 

They reached the bus stop just as Kate’s bus was pulling up. She turned to face Bertie. “I’m going to fuck this up.” 

“You’re going to do fine.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave feedback! I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for a minor mention of past transphobia/misgendering

There was something about being out in nature that was just so exhilarating to Kate. The wind rushing through the trees, rustling the leaves. The cool morning air. The faint sounds of birds singing in the distance. The knowledge that if you fucked up and told the boyfriend of the girl you’re attracted to that his girlfriend has a cute butt he would have the perfect place to hide your body… 

Yeah, nature was great. 

_Positive thoughts!_ said a voice in her head that sounded an awful lot like Bertie’s. _You’ve got this!_

_Oh, go fuck yourself mind Bertie,_ she thought back and briefly considered texting it to the real one, who had spent all of last night sending her text blocks of heart emojis. He was a sweetheart, but in this scenario she didn’t need a sweetheart. She needed somebody who was going to kick her in the butt and tell her not to fuck up or else she’d get another kick. 

There was a light crunching sound on the pathway behind her and Kate turned to see Roger walking towards her. He looked just as tired as when she first met him on Tuesday, although he also looked significantly tenser. Although she supposed that meeting a near complete stranger in the woods would do that to anyone. 

“I’m not going to murder you,” she said. 

He froze on the path and Kate realized that maybe that wasn’t the best opening line. “Wh-What?” 

“Oh, um, I mean. You look tense. I’m not going to murder you or anything, so you can relax.” 

“That wasn’t what I was worried about _before_ …” he muttered. 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m just your girlfriend’s weird friend’s weird friend. You can trust me!” 

“You two really are weird.” 

“I would say that it was just a bad first impression, but I really don’t think that we improve with time. I mean, Bertie literally talks to his flowers and I’m studying poisons. We’re a strange pair.” 

“I don’t think that toxicology is on the same level of strange as talking to plants.” 

“Uh, I’m the one who’s actually in the program and I can vouch for the fact that all toxicology students are inherently weird in some way.” 

“Well I can’t wait to see what your way is,” Roger said dryly. 

Kate laughed. “So which path do you want to take?” 

Roger ended up choosing the shortest route. Kate suspected that it was a way to avoid spending more time with her than he had to, rather than it being his preferred path. He kept pretty quiet as they walked, letting Kate start most of their conversations and replying with mostly short answers. But Kate didn’t mind the the quiet too much. It was nice to have someone with her on a hike that wasn’t an audio recording. And Roger was good company when he actually spoke. 

The halfway point on the trail was a small outcropping of rocks that overlooked the city. Kate sat down and looked over her shoulder. “Care to join me?” 

Roger hesitated before sitting down next to her, glancing nervously at the edge of the rocks. “Are you sure this is safe?” 

“Sure. There’s lots of spots like this along the trails. I try to stop at at least one of them every week. It’s nice and peaceful. Plus you get an amazing view.” 

He looked out over the town and Kate thought she saw a hint of a smile grace his face. “Yeah. I guess it is.” 

“So, are you having fun yet?” Kate said, nudging his shoulder lightly with hers. He grimaced slightly. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine. And I suppose this is alright.” 

“Ooo, don’t let Etta hear you say that! She’ll marry me and then you’ll be single and alone.” 

Roger scoffed. “If Etta married everyone who made me have fun, she would be marrying herself every week.” 

Kate felt a small tug in her stomach. “Okay, that’s kind of sweet.” 

“Don’t tell her I said that.” 

“Why? Scared it’ll ruin your cold guy image?” 

“No. Scared that it’ll make her squeal and hug me? Yes.” 

“Hey, she looks like she gives amazing hugs,” Kate said. 

“You haven’t had one of her hugs when she’s excited,” Roger said. “I think she cracked a rib.” 

“Doubtful. You need to have muscles to crack ribs and that girl is tiny.” 

“Tiny but intense.” 

Kate laughed. “That’s cute though! I’d love a girlfriend who was tiny and intense.” 

“You say that now, but you’ve only met Hurricane Etta once.” 

“And yet you’re dating her.” What she had seen of their relationship so far confused Kate. They seemed to bounce back and forth so quickly from liking each other to being driven crazy by each other. She didn’t understand how they had become friends, let alone begun dating each other. 

He laughed once. “Yeah. I don’t get how that happened either.” 

They were quiet for the next few minutes, staring out over the city and just enjoying the peacefulness of being out in nature. The city was far enough away that the noise was drowned out, and Kate soaked in the experience of being able to enjoy the city aesthetic without having to deal with all the noise of urban life. Coming out to the hiking trails was a nice escape from reality.

Surprisingly, Roger was the first to break the silence. “We should probably keep moving.” 

“Yeah.” Kate sighed and got up. “It’s too bad we can’t stay out here all day.” 

“I could do without the sharp drop-off, but otherwise, yeah,” Roger said, getting up slowly. 

“Okay, the edge is at least five feet away.” 

“You could still slip. I can’t believe you do this every week.” 

“It’s really nice. You get to be alone with yourself and nature.” 

“You sound like every cliched nature magazine.” 

“It’s a cliche for a reason! Come on, I’ll race you to the top,” Kate said as they stepped back onto the trail.” 

Roger gave her an incredulous look. “I can’t run,” he said. “Binder, remember?” 

“Ooo, right. Too bad. These trails are great for running.” 

“Maybe next year.” 

Kate grinned. “Is that the promise of another meeting?” 

He shrugged. “Sure. You’re good company.” 

“Sweet. Why not until next year though?” 

“I’m getting top surgery in January. It’ll take a while to heal, but-“ 

“That’s awesome! Can’t you go just go running without a binder though?” 

“Sure. But I’m not doing that with another person around.” 

“Fair.” 

* * *

Kate found five messages from Bertie waiting for her once she moved back into service range. 

**good luck today! just don’t talk about his girlfriend’s butt and you’ll do amazing!**

**hey, how’s it going?**

**kate?**

**kaaaaaaattteeee???**

**you’d better just be ignoring me and not murdered and buried in the woods somewhere because i don’t want to have to go looking for your body**

She rolled her eyes before typing out a response. 

_i was in the middle of the woods, there isn’t exactly service there_

**OH THANK GOD YOU’RE ALIVE I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO BECOME A VIGILANTE**

**DON’T MAKE ME BECOME A VIGILANTE KATE I WOULD BE A TERRIBLE VIGILANTE**

_you need to learn how to relax_

**sooooo how’d it go??????**

_it was fine_

_actually better than fine_

_it was kind of fun?_

_her boyfriend’s cool and i hate him for it._

_just let me hate you dude_

**ugh i know right. isn’t he the worst?**

**like who gave you the right to be hot and awesome while dating someone awesome?**

**I WANNA BE JEALOUS OF YOU IN PEACE WITHOUT ALL THESE GAY THOUGHTS BOTHERING ME**

_first of all, all your thoughts are gay_

_second of all, i’m now hanging out with him every week_

**what happened to hanging out with him being a terrible idea?**

_that was before i realized how cool he is. i need a chill friend._

**what’s wrong with me???????**

Kate sent him a screenshot of their conversation. 

**okay you might have a point but you don’t have to be an asshole about it**

_also you don’t really shut up? so i need someone who knows how to shut up._

**what is this, pick on bertie day?**

_i love that you don’t shut up, babe. you know i do._

_but seriously_

_you don’t shut up_

**:(((((((((**

**did you mention his girlfriend’s butt?**

_NO_

_i was very good_

_barely even thought about it_

**but you did think about it?**

_shut up_

**fair’s fair**

* * *

Kate didn’t see said girlfriend with the cute butt until almost a week later. They’d been texting back and forth a fair bit, and Kate had considered asking Etta if she wanted to meet up to hang out sooner, but decided that it was probably better just to wait until the meeting. 

She waited outside the university centre for Etta, fiddling with the straps on her backpack as she searched the passerbys for the girl who was hopefully her friend. Her hopefully friend that she definitely wasn’t going to fall in love with. No matter how cute and sweet and funny she seemed to be. Kate wasn’t going to fall in love with her. They were going to be strictly platonic friends. That was it. 

Etta rushed across the quad towards Kate. “Kate! I’m so sorry I’m late, my prof would not stop talking. Were you waiting for long?” 

“Not at all,” Kate lied. She wasn’t about to admit that she was beginning to adopt Bertie’s habit of getting to meetings nearly ten minutes. And she certainly wasn’t about to make this gorgeous girl feel guilty about making her wait. Kate would wait for ages for her. In a strictly platonic manner. 

Etta smiled up at her and she was like a tiny ray of sunshine. “Great! So where’s this meeting then?” 

“Right.” Kate lead her upstairs to their club room. Most of the other volunteers were already there waiting and Laura gave her an enthusiastic wave as she came in. 

“Kate!” She said excitedly, getting up to give her a hug. “Who’s your friend?” 

“This is Etta,” Kate said, taking a seat on the couch. “She’s thinking about volunteering with us.” 

Laura gasped excitedly. “Really? We never get new volunteers!” 

“Seriously?” Etta asked. 

“Seriously,” Yvette said from her seat in front of the computer. “Also we’re all girls, weirdly enough, so if you know any queer boys, bring ‘em out.” 

“Not any that would want to come, sorry.” 

“Also I’m sorry, I just assumed you were a girl, that was-“ 

“Completely correct and the best thing that happened to me today,” Etta said, looking as though she might smother Yvette in a hug. 

“Cool. I’ll just give you the basic spiel, and then you can think about it. We don’t really have a ton to discuss at the moment, it being our first meeting and all.” 

“Yeah, sounds good.” Etta took a seat on the sofa next to Kate. 

Yvette went through the basic volunteer spiel, occasionally interrupted by interjections from Laura. Volunteers were expected to hold regular office hours, come to weekly meetings, and assist with events held by the organization. Nice and simple, nothing too difficult. 

“Think that would be something you’d be interested in?” Yvette asked. 

Etta’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Absolutely! That sounds like the coolest thing ever!” 

Kate smiled. “It is pretty damn fun.” 

“Uh, more like the funnest thing on campus,” Laura said. “We’re literally the gayest group on campus. That means we’re the happiest, which means we’re having the most fun.” 

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Yvette said. “Are you also a lesbian? Because if you are, I’m going to laugh my ass off.” 

“I have a boyfriend, so I sure hope I’m not. I don’t think he’d like that news very much,” Etta said. 

Laura laughed. “Yeah, mine wasn’t too happy when I told him.” 

“Why would that be funny though?” Etta asked Yvette. 

“Cause most of our group so far are lesbians,” she said. “We might need to change the name and have me quit.” 

Laura leaned back and rested her head in her girlfriend’s lap. “Aw, but then we’d miss you too much and have to bring you back. And then we’d just have to change the name back again. Completely pointless.” 

“Besides, what would we even call it?” Kate said. “The Lesbian Club is just boring. Plus we call ourselves that already whenever we hang out without you polysexual people around.” 

“Damn right,” Laura said, giving Kate a high five. 

Etta laughed. “Well, I’ve got to get to my last class, but this seems like a lot of fun! I’ll see you next week?” 

“Or sooner!” Laura said, eagerly leaning forward on her knees. “We hang out in here a lot if you wanna come by.” 

She smiled. “Sure.” 

“I’ll walk you out,” Kate said. The hallways around their club space were confusing the first few times you came by. 

“So the rest of your club seems really nice,” Etta said as they walked. 

“Yeah. We usually have a few more members than that, but everyone’s still getting settled and figuring stuff out. You know how it is.” 

“Yeah. But still. Nice people. Have you been a member for a while?” 

“A couple of years. Laura knew Bertie and I in high school, and she was a big part of the reason I joined.” 

“Yeah?” Etta looked curious. 

“Yeah. She kind of gave me the push I needed, if that makes sense,” Kate said. 

“Yeah, it does. So you were this gay back in high school too? Did you have any straight friends?” 

Kate laughed. “Nope. The three of us all hung out together and yes, we were part of the drama club.” 

“No! Kate! You’re a walking lesbian stereotype!” 

“Hey, I’m not as bad as Laura. She’s literally a theatre major now.” 

“Oh my gosh, that’s just pure gay right there.” 

“Yeah, that’s kind of the perfect description of Laura. Just straight gay.” 

“Well not straight gay. That’s not possible.” 

Kate laughed. “Good point.” 

Etta suddenly looked uncomfortable. “And they’re… they’re cool? Like with-“ 

“Yeah. Yeah, they’re cool,” Kate said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Laura actually got suspended for a week in high school for beating up another member of our GSA who said that I was just a straight guy trying to be special.” 

“Ugh. Please tell me where this assface lives so that I can go and beat them up as well.” 

“Unfortunately, I think they moved away for college. But it’s also fortunate because it means that I don’t have to deal with them anymore.” 

“Good.” 

They stopped in front of Etta’s lecture hall. “I’ll see you around then?” Kate said. 

“No.” Kate felt her stomach drop as Etta shook her head, only to rise again when she noticed the little smile on the other girl’s face. “No, I don’t want to have to wait another week to see you again. You and Bertie are really fun, and I want to hang out with you more. Not just talk.” 

“Well… Are you free this weekend?” 

“Depends on what time. I’ve got work Saturday morning until about two.” 

“How about Saturday night then?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Etta’s smiling up at Kate, all soft and gentle, and she wants to wrap her up in a hug. She was like a small, cute teddy bear. Sweet and adorable. 

“I’ll text you the details then,” Kate said quickly before rushing off before she could say or do anything embarrassing. She heard Etta laugh lightly behind her and her ears heated up. 

_Girls,_ she thought. _Why did they always have to be so cute?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated! If you have a tumblr, you should follow me @pillowcreeks


	4. Chapter 4

Bertie wasn’t expecting to see the two people who came into his shop one Friday afternoon. 

“Bertrand! How’s it going?” Etta asked, giving him a bright smile. 

He gave her one in return. “Pretty okay,” he said. “What are you two doing here?” 

“Well, we were just talking about you-“ Bertie tried to ignore the flip that his heart did at that- “and we realized that we’ve never actually seen your shop before. And I’ve been talking with Kate about hanging out this weekend, so I figured we could kill two birds with one stone by coming down here to invite you over.” 

“Yeah? What’s the current plan?” 

“A movie night.” Etta leaned against the front counter and Bertie casually walked over to adjust a pot to prevent getting too close to her. “My aunt’s out of town this week, so I’ve got the place to myself, and-“ 

“Etta,” Roger said sharply. 

“Oh come on, it’s _Bertie._ He’s not going to sneak into my apartment to murder me.” She turned to him, her eyes glinting. “Are you?” 

“Well I wasn’t _planning_ on it…” 

Etta laughed while Roger looked even grumpier than before. “You’d better be joking,” he said. 

“Relax, it’s on the seventh floor, remember? He’d have a hard time breaking in.” 

“Besides, why would I murder her?” Bertie said. “I’d only lose a really cool friend doing that.” 

“Exactly. I’m too perfect to murder,” Etta said. 

“Yeah, sure,” Roger said. 

Etta gasped overdramatically. “Are you implying that I’m not perfect?” 

“Not quite there. Close though.” 

She beamed up at him and gave his hand a quick squeeze, so small it almost went unnoticed by Bertie. But not small enough that it did. 

“So what’s the movie?” he asked. 

“Well I think that we should watch Pan’s Labyrinth. Roger thinks we should watch A River Runs Through. And Kate wants to watch Vertigo.” Etta said. “What’s your vote for?” 

“The Princess Bride,” Bertie said immediately. “Best movie ever made.” 

“Ooo, that one’s really good too! Okay, we’ll start with that. And then we’ll move onto whatever we feel like after that.” 

“Which’ll probably be the second best romcom ever made.” Etta raised an eyebrow. “Ten Things I Hate About You,” Bertie said, as if it should have been obvious. 

“Do you have a list?” Roger asked. 

“Don’t you?” 

Etta laughed. “Romcoms are too happy for him. He only likes sad movies. And nerd movies.” 

“Hey, Star Wars totally counts as a romcom, so you-“ 

“Bertie, Luke gets his hand chopped off,” Roger said. “What part of that is romantic?” 

“Who said anything about Luke? Han and Leia were basically the romance of the century.” 

Roger tilted his head to the side, examining him carefully. Bertie felt his neck heat up as he blushed. “Yeah, I think you missed the point of those movies,” Roger said. 

“Or maybe you did,” he shot back. “Guess we’ll just have to watch them together sometime to find out.” 

“Okay, but that doesn’t have to be tomorrow night, right?” Etta said. “Cause I don’t think we have 6 hours to watch the entire original trilogy.” 

“Weak,” the boys said in unison. 

Etta rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m renting The Princess Bride and you’re just going to have to deal with that. Also: where’s my free chocolate?” 

Bertie smiled. “Just take whatever’s about to expire from the rack. I haven’t gotten the chance to check them yet today.” 

“Sweet!”

* * *

 “This is a terrible idea,” Roger said. 

Etta rolled her eyes as she carried a couple of chairs into the living room. “It’ll go fine.” 

“They’re basically complete strangers,” he said. “And you want to invite them over to your apartment. Now they know where you live.” 

“I don’t think Kate and Bertie still count as complete strangers,” she said. “We’ve known them for a few weeks now.” 

“Exactly. It’s only been a few weeks.” 

She rolled her eyes again. “Relax. Everything’ll go fine. It’s just a movie night.” 

“What? And nothing could possibly go wrong during a movie night?” 

“Like?” 

Roger paused on his way to the living room, trying to think of what terrible thing Kate or Bertie could do. Etta smirked. “Told you so,” she said. 

He sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll give it a chance.” 

“Aren’t you having fun with Kate?” Etta said. “You seem to really be enjoying the hikes. Or am I reading that wrong?” 

“No. Kate’s… Kate’s great. It’s the other one.” 

“What? Bertie’s great! He’s like a second me, only tall with broad shoulders! Like, a really sexy guy version of me.” 

Roger gave her a disbelieving look. “Really sexy? Really?” 

“Okay, number one, have you seen Bertie? You’ve gotta be blind not to see that he’s sexy. Number two, obviously not as hot as you. Number three, since when were you the jealous type?” 

“Since about five seconds ago when you started talking about the sexy guy version of you.” 

“Again, have you _seen_ Bertie?” Roger tried to be annoyed, but Etta had that glitter in her eye that told him that she was just teasing and didn’t really mean what she meant. He decided to get her back. 

“No, you’re right. He’s like, a super sexy guy version of you. Maybe even a sexier version?” 

Etta gasped. “You take that back!” 

“No no, you were totally right. Tall, broad shouldered. Wouldn’t need me to reach stuff on the top shelf. That’s very sexy you know,” Roger said. 

“But he’s too tall to give piggy backs to!” 

“Don’t have to carry him around all day,” Roger said thoughtfully. “You know, I think you might be onto something here.” 

“But he’s not me?” Etta said hopefully. 

Roger smiled slightly. “Yeah. There is that one downside.” 

She beamed up at him. The buzzer went off for the apartment and Etta went to let Kate and Bertie in. 

“I thought of another advantage to Bertie,” Etta said as she came back into the apartment with their friends in tow. 

“You thought of what?” Bertie said, confused. 

“Yeah? What is it?” Roger asked. 

“Were you guys making a pros and cons list for me or something? 

“He’s taller than you,” Etta said, “which means that he can give piggybacks for longer.” 

“It absolutely doesn’t mean that. Height doesn’t equal strength and I’m definitely stronger,” Roger said. 

“Hey!” Bertie said. “You don’t know that!” 

Roger gave him a dubious look. “I’m pretty sure I do.” 

“I bet he is.” Etta leaned forward on her chair, grinning. 

“I’ll take that challenge. Get on my back.” 

“Seriously?” Kate said, speaking up for the first time. “Are you two seriously having this argument? It’s not even- what? Like, seriously. Seriously.” 

“Let me clear this up for you,” Etta said, getting up. “I call this ‘Roger Kaplan’s Competitiveness Scale.’” 

“Wow, creative name,” Roger said dryly. She glared at him and he had work hard to keep the satisfied grin off his face. 

“ _Anyways._ ” Etta tossed her hair over her shoulder, annoyed, before reaching down towards the ground. “This is his competitive level when there is no challenge involved. Competitive, but also kind of whatever. This-“ she raised her hand slightly- “is his competitive level when there is a challenge involved. And _this_ -“ she raised her hand above her head- “is his competitive level when his loving girlfriend challenges him.” 

“Oh, and you aren’t competitive?” Roger said. 

“Not anywhere close to you, darling.” 

He wrinkled his nose involuntarily at the pet name. Etta noticed and looked concerned for a second before he knelt down and said, “Just get on my back.” 

She climbed on. “To make this fair though, you _do_ have to carry me around the apartment.” 

“Seriously?” 

“That’s how piggybacks work, Roger.” 

He sighed but obliged. He was pleased when Bertie, who went after him, couldn’t manage to carry Etta for as long. 

“See?” Roger said. “I told you height didn’t equal strength.” 

“Hold my beer,” Kate said, getting up. 

“You aren’t drinking a beer,” Bertie said, confused. 

“It’s an expression, Bertie,” Etta said as she climbed onto Kate’s back. 

“Why do I feel like I’m about to get my ass handed to me?” Roger groaned. 

That was because he was. When Kate finally set Etta down, it was with a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “I told you I could do better,” she said. 

“Technically you just told us to hold your non-existent beer,” Bertie said. 

Etta groaned. “That’s what we forgot to get! Every good movie night needs beer!” 

“You mean like this?” Kate said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a six-pack. 

“Oh, nice!” 

Kate handed them each a beer, but Roger declined his. 

“Apparently I’m funny when I’m drunk,” he explained at her questioning look. “So I just don’t really drink. Or at least not around Etta. Especially not while she has a camera.” 

Etta leaned over and whispered something to Kate, who laughed. “I’ll be sure to remember that,” she said. 

Roger made a quick mental note not to drink around Kate either. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated! I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	5. Chapter 5

One thing that Etta was absolutely adoring about hanging out with Kate - besides Kate herself, of course - was spending time with other queer girls. She’d gone to a fairly small high school, where she was one of the few queer students and the only trans student. The GSA hadn’t felt like a particularly safe space for her, as it was mostly straight students and she hadn’t really felt like spending Thursday’s lunch period explaining to Lucy from math for the fifth time that week that her pronouns were she/her, thank you very much. 

Coming to university had felt like a breath of fresh air. She could be herself. She could choose who to out herself to. No one in her classes knew her deadname. She could put a pan pride pin on her backpack and not get seventeen questions about what it was or have to endure rumours that she had an STD just because she liked more than one gender. Not that there weren’t occasional rough moments: her sociology prof in first year commenting that bisexual people were greedy wasn’t exactly a fun time. But it was better than high school. And that counted for a lot. 

Meeting Roger had been better than she could have ever imagined. Another trans person! He was the first person that she met who actually understood what she meant when she talked about dysphoria, and the only person who she didn’t feel like would be thinking about what was in her pants. Although, if he thought about getting in them, she wouldn’t mind that much. Wouldn’t mind at all, really. 

But as much as she loved her boyfriend, he was just that. A boy. She had yet to meet any other queer girls who would understand what she was feeling. And she wanted that. She really, really wanted that. 

And then Kate stumbled into her life and Etta was pulled into a club that seemed to be exclusively run by amazing and kickass queer women. She adored Laura and Yvette, Kate’s roommates who seemed to be a packaged deal with Kate whenever it came to planning queer events. Not that Etta minded that much. She’d begun spending time with each of them without Kate and was finding them both to be utter delights. Yvette shared her love of all things spooky, and Laura had a kind of bubbly energy that was perfect for perking her up when she was dreading going to class. The other girl had even tagged along with her to a few of the classes that she was having a lot of trouble getting up the motivation to go to, and her snarky notes throughout the lectures were the only thing to get Etta through some of them. 

Her head was spinning from how happy she felt. In the span of less than a month, she had gone from knowing one other queer person to knowing almost a dozen. And she had so many new friends now. So many people who already seemed to care about her so much. It was mind-boggling. 

The four of them ran an event one night late in September and its cleanup had ended up taking way longer than they had been expecting to. By the time they stumbled sleepily towards the row of buses waiting at the edge of campus, it was already eleven. 

“Ugh, I don’t want to have to go all the way home,” Etta groaned. “Can’t I just sleep on this bench here?” 

“My feet are so sore, don’t you dare take that bench,” Laura moaned. 

“Guys, the buses aren’t that far. You’ll be home before you know it.” Yvette put an arm around Laura, supporting her as they walked towards the stop. 

“But I have to transfer downtown. I hate the downtown bus station at night,” Etta said. 

“Wait, you’re going downtown?” Kate said, looking worried. 

“Yeah. The bus that goes by my aunt’s apartment doesn’t come here.” 

“Etta, there’s no way I’m letting you go to the downtown station by yourself this late. That’s just asking for trouble.” 

“Oh come on, it’s not that late. I’ve been there way later than this,” Etta said. 

“Etta, please. I’d feel so much better if you just crashed at our place for the night,” Kate said. 

“Yeah!” piped up Laura. “We’ve got a super comfy futon you can use. It’ll be like a slumber party.” 

“I don’t want to inconvenience you…” Etta said hesitantly. 

“Not at all,” Kate said. “I think we’d all feel much better if you stayed over than risk getting kidnapped, raped or murdered at the bus station.” 

“Okay yeah that sounds good! I like not being murdered!” 

Kate laughed lightly. Etta felt her heart swell slightly at the sound. 

“You should send your aunt a text though,” Laura said. “Let her know you’re not going to be home tonight.” 

“Oh no, that’s not an issue,” Etta said. “She’s out of town for business this month, so it doesn’t really make any difference to her either way.” 

“So wait, you’re all on your own?” 

“Yep.” 

“Doesn’t it get lonely though?” 

“Sometimes. It’s easier to study though.” Etta didn’t mention that she had been on her own most of the time ever since she was old enough to take care of herself. Her aunt’s job required that she travel a lot for work, and so she was never really around much. She had gotten used to being alone. 

Maybe it was because she was so accustomed to being alone in a big apartment that Etta was so surprised when she entered theirs. It felt lived in. Like the people who rented the space had made their home there and enjoyed the time they spent in it. The living room sofas looked soft and comfortable, with pillows tossed haphazardly over them. There were shoes piled up in the hallway closet, sparkly high heels mixed in with muddy sneakers. Textbooks were spread out across the living room table, like a couple of the girls had been studying there in the morning before leaving home in a hurry to catch their bus. Etta felt a sharp pain of longing as she looked around. This was what she wanted. This soft and gentle home. Not the cold emptiness that was waiting for her back home. 

Yvette gave Etta a quick wave goodnight before helping Laura off to their room. The other girl had begun dozing off on her girlfriend’s shoulder while they were still on the bus, and she mumbled a barely audible goodnight as she was half carried down the hallway. Kate folded down one of the sofas into a bed. 

“We don’t have any sheets for it, but I’ve got a few blankets in my room you could use,” she said. 

“Thanks,” Etta said. 

Kate gave her a quick nod before disappearing down the hallway. Etta sat down on the futon. After a moment of hesitation, she lay back and sighed as she felt her spine crack back into place. Sure enough, it was as comfy as Laura had promised. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Etta glanced over to see Kate standing at the end of the futon, a soft smile on her face and a bundle of blankets in her arms. 

“It’s incredible. I’m going to sleep like a baby, especially if those blankets are as cozy as they look.” 

“They’re pretty cozy,” Kate said, handing her the bundle. “Really good for the winter, because this place gets freezing.” 

“Sweet.” 

“Oh shoot.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

Kate bit her lip. “You’re wearing jeans.” 

“Oh, right.” Denim wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing to sleep in, but Etta could make do. She was tired enough that she probably could have slept through the night even if her clothes were made out of sandpaper. 

“I might have a pair of sweats that could fit you,” Kate said. “Come with me.” 

Etta followed her down the hallway to her room. As they passed Laura and Yvette’s room, she heard a soft voice followed by light laughter. She smiled. 

“So how often does living with a couple drive you crazy?” she asked Kate. 

“At least once a day,” Kate said. “But they’re my friends and I love them, so it all works out.” 

Kate’s room was surprisingly messier than Etta had been expecting. Kate had always struck Etta as being a tidy person. Although, that may have just been because Kate seemed to have her life together. Now that she really thought about it, Kate - who constantly wore old runners, messy ponytails and braids, and had a backpack that seemed to contain only a laptop and various random papers - was not exactly a neat person. In fact she was probably the opposite. 

Kate tossed Etta a pair of sweat pants. “Here. Try these.” 

Etta changed in the bathroom before returning to Kate’s room for the seal of approval. 

“I feel like they’re a little long?” she said, looking down at where the fabric bunched up around her ankles. “But that’s not really a surprise, I am shorter than you. And that’ll just make them more comfortable to sleep in, right?” 

She glanced up at Kate. The other girl was staring at her, her cheeks flushed a light pink. “Kate?” Etta said, concerned. 

She blinked, startled. “What?” 

“You alright?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Do they fit okay?” 

Etta smirked. “Wow, you must be more tired than I thought, you didn’t hear a single word I said. Get some sleep, Tired Beauty, I’ll see you in the morning.” 

She closed the door to Kate’s room before she could see the blush completely take over the other girl’s face. 

* * *

Etta had been up for about twenty minutes when Kate came out to the living room the next morning. 

“Hey,” she said. “Sleep okay?” 

Etta shrugged. “Pretty good. You?” 

“Not bad. We don’t have much to offer you in the way of breakfast, I’m afraid. I was planning to swing by the grocery store after the event last night, but…” 

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing though,” Etta said. 

“It’s not?” 

“No. Now we’ve got the perfect excuse to buy stuff for pancakes. Just think. Chocolate chip pancakes to fuel your hiking soul.” 

“Hiking soul?” Kate’s eyes widened. “Shit! I forgot to text Roger!” 

Etta laughed. “Yeah, I figured that when he texted me asking if you had died. Don’t worry, I told him that you’d be out there this afternoon and to go home and actually sleep in for once.” 

Kate groaned and sat down on the futon next to Etta. “He’s going to kill me.” 

“Nah. Make fun of you for sleeping through your hike? Possibly.” 

“Well, I might as well make the most of it then.” 

Etta grinned. “That’s the spirit.” 

Kate’s apartment was just down the road from the grocery store, so the girls were able to just walk over. They loaded up their basket with a box of pancake mix, milk, chocolate chips, and, to Kate’s mild horror, gummy bears. 

“Don’t judge me, they taste delicious in pancakes,” Etta said as she added them to the basket. 

“Sounds disgusting, but okay.” 

Yvette and Laura were still asleep when they got back, so the two girls tried to be as quiet as possible as they moved around the kitchen. Kate was able to do this without much difficulty. Etta, on the other hand, had years to get used to being the only person in her apartment and not having to worry about making too much noise while she cooked. Not to mention that she was generally a fairly loud person. 

“Shhh!!!” Kate said as Etta pulled out the mixing bowl with a loud clattering noise. 

“Sorry!” Etta whispered. “They’re not exactly quiet bowls!” 

Kate rolled her eyes. “Just measure out the oil, will you?” 

“Who has oil but not chocolate chips?” Etta muttered, getting the oil off the top shelf. 

The pancakes did end up being delicious. Or at least Etta thought so. Kate made a weird face after her first bite and then switched over to just the chocolate chip ones. But to Etta nothing could be better than the chewy, half-melted gummy bears mixed with fluffy pancake. It was like a little round piece of heaven. 

Laura and Yvette came out of their room at the smell of breakfast. 

“Did you two make breakfast?” Yvette asked. 

“Obviously they did, Yvette. There’s clearly pancakes on the table and dishes in the sink. What you meant to say was did you two make breakfast for us as well?” Laura said. 

Etta laughed and offered them the plate of gummy bear pancakes. “Help yourselves.” 

Laura looked eager until she noticed the gummy bears. “Are those…?” 

“Yes,” Kate said. “There’s chocolate chip ones as well if you don’t want to try Etta’s experiment.” 

“Experiment implies that I didn’t know what would happen,” Etta said, slightly offended. “I knew what would happen. I knew I was making the most delicious thing ever.” 

Laura took the proffered plate of chocolate chip pancakes gratefully. “Yeah sorry Etta, but I don’t think you can come over here anymore. You have terrible taste in breakfast foods.” 

“I don’t even think that can be classified as food,” Yvette said. 

Etta shrugged. “More for me then!” 

“At least if you die from eating those, there’ll be nice flowers at your funeral,” Kate said. 

“Tell Bertie not to use roses. Roses are a cliche and I deserve better than that.” 

“I’m sure he’d be happy to discuss your funeral flowers with you at length if you let him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	6. Chapter 6

Bertie liked Sundays. It was his day off. It was quiet. He could just rest and relax in his apartment and not think about anything at all. Today he was planning on watching Netflix and maybe napping a little. Sunday naps were nice and lazy and- 

“Hey Bertrand!” The shout came from the street below his bedroom window. He looked outside to see Etta, Kate, and Roger standing outside. Etta was beaming up at him, bouncing on her toes, while Kate looked amused and Roger looked resigned. 

Bertie opened the window. “What do you guys want?” he called down. 

“Are you busy today?” Etta yelled back. 

“Not really. I mean, I was gonna watch some tv, but nothing that I can’t cancel.” 

“Great! So we’re-“ 

“Why don’t you just come down here so that you two don’t have to be screaming in the middle of the street?” Roger said, rubbing his temples. 

“Good idea!” Bertie shouted slightly louder than he had to just to get on Roger’s nerves. 

When he got down to the street, Bertie noticed that all three of them were carrying large, bulky backpacks. This wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary had it been a weekday, but their bags were usually a lot lighter on the weekends. 

“Are you heading to the library?” Bertie asked. 

“Why would we invite you to the library?” Roger said. 

“I don’t know, maybe you just like torturing me.” 

“Guess again! Guess again!” Etta was still bouncing. 

“Uh… You’re going to the movies and trying to sneak in your own snacks?” 

“Nope!” Etta pulled off her backpack and opened it. Inside were five Nerf guns. 

“Oh my god, where did you get so many?!” Bertie said, astonished. 

“The toy store was having a sale,” Etta said. “We’re going over to Kate’s cousin’s place to have a battle. Wanna come?” 

“Yeah!” Napping could wait. Kicking ass at Nerf sounded like a much better time. Even if Kate’s cousin, Bollard, was terrifying. 

Bollard lived in a house on the south end of town with her girlfriend and their two roommates. Bollard smirked at Bertie as he came in, and he resisted the urge to run and hide in the bathroom like he had throughout all of high school. 

Etta already knew most of the inhabitants from the queer group at the university and they had all gone to school with Kate and Bertie, so the only introductions that really needed to be made were to Roger. Deep took the lead. 

“My name’s Alyssa, but most people just call me Deep. It’s my last name and just sounds cooler. Plus it goes better with Bollard’s name. She’s my girlfriend. Can you believe it? My girlfriend.” 

“Yeah, but if you use girl to describe me in any other context I’ll kick your fucking ass,” Bollard said. “I’m not a girl, I’m non-binary.”  

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you go with girlfriend then?” Roger asked. 

“Because partner made Percy talk like a cowboy for a month.” 

“That was a fun month,” Percy said. “The boots were a big hit at school.” 

“The only reason they didn’t cause an actual big hit was because I threatened everyone who talked about how stupid you looked,” Nora said. She turned to Roger. “I’m Nora. That’s my idiot baby brother, Percy. Feel free to hit him if you want, but be warned that I’ll hit you back.” 

“Did you bring the goods?” Deep asked. 

Kate, Etta, and Roger began emptying out their bags onto the floor. There were sixteen Nerf guns in total, enough for each of them to have two. 

“Oh man, this is gonna be so cool,” Bertie said. He picked up two of them and pointed them at Etta. “How badass do I look?” 

“You look like the hero of an action movie. Like you’re about to kick down a door and save your love interest. Very hot,” she said. 

Bertie’s ears heated up. But before he could stutter out a thanks, Bollard piped up. “You look like an idiot with two Nerf guns.” 

“Wow, creative insult,” Percy said. “How long did you spend on that one?” 

“Percy, your face looks like a zebra that got hit by a bus. Shut up.” 

“Bollard…” Kate said warningly. Her cousin huffed and puffed out her cheeks, but didn’t say anything else. 

“So are we just doing housemates versus you folks?” Deep said. 

“I think that’d be easiest,” Kate said. “It gives you four an advantage, but you’re going to need it.” 

Deep gasped, offended. “Need it? You’re the ones who will be needing every advantage you can get your hands on! We’re going to wipe the floor with you!” 

“You wish.” 

They all set timers on their phones for one minute before racing off towards different parts of the house. Bertie ran down to the basement, figuring that it’d be the easiest spot for the others to forget about and he could just hide out there and pick people off as they came down the steps. Of course, there was the obvious downside of having to spend time in Bollard’s creepy ass basement, but Bertie figured that he could stick it out if he kept close to the stairs where most of the light was. 

Unfortunately, he heard feet thumping down the stairs right after him, and he looked over his shoulder to see Percy hot on his heels. The other boy grinned and the white of his teeth flashed in the dim light of the basement. 

“Guess we’ll be having a standoff right as the timer goes off, huh?” he said. 

“No thanks,” Bertie said, and ducked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. 

The door rattled as Percy tried to force his way in. “Oh, come on! That’s cheating!” 

“I don’t remember there being a rule against using locks!” Bertie said as the timer on his phone went off. 

He’d expected Percy to just get annoyed and leave, and then he could shoot him in the back as he walked away, but he seemed to be more stubborn than Bertie had anticipated. There was a thump from outside and then- 

“I’m just going wait out here for you. You can’t stay in there forever.” There was some low muttering, a clang, and then, “And I’m comfortable out here! Real comfy! I can stay here all day!” 

“Are you going to talk the entire time?” Bertie said. 

“…No.” A second later: “You can come out whenever you want!” 

Bertie rolled his eyes. Percy had always been kind of annoying. He’d been hoping that he would have grown out of it since the last time they’d seen each other, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

“When. Ever. You. Want. Cause I can sit here allllll day.” 

Bertie didn’t think that he could if he had to listen to Percy drone on and on. He grabbed the bottle of soap from next to the sink and slowly unlocked the door as quietly as he could. Percy didn’t seem to hear it over the sound of his own voice, so Bertie opened the door a crack and threw the bottle out blindly, hoping that it would hit Percy in the head. 

There was a loud clattering sound and a slight yelp from Percy, but it didn’t sound pained, so Bertie quickly opened the door further and fired off three shots towards Percy before he could grab his own gun. Percy yelped as one of them hit him in the neck. 

“Was throwing the soap at me really necessary?” he said. 

Bertie shrugged. “I was hoping to keep you distracted and catch you by surprise so that I could get the door open enough to aim properly. Also I really wanted to throw something at you.” 

Percy huffed. He was sitting on top of the drying machine, his legs resting in the washer next to it. “Well now that’s just mean.” 

“Did it hit you?” 

“No. You managed to sink it perfectly in the washing machine though.” 

“Nice.” 

Bertie had to rethink his strategy. If he stayed in the basement now, it was likely that he would have to deal with Percy the entire time. And he definitely couldn’t do that. He decided to head for the main floor and then figure it out from there. 

He creeped up to the top of the staircase and looked around the corner slowly. Across the hall, he could see Kate’s sneaker sticking out from underneath the kitchen table and he rolled over to meet her. There was the sharp twonk of a shot being fired, but he was already ducking under the table to join Kate and Roger. 

“Hey buddy,” Kate said. “How was the basement?” 

“Good. I took out Percy. Who are we hiding from?” Bertie said, nestling between the two of them. Roger stiffened slightly as he brushed against him, but he didn’t move away, so Bertie decided to take that as a victory. 

“Bollard and Deep,” Kate said. “Was Nora with Percy?” 

“Nope. Have you two seen Etta?” 

“She went upstairs at the beginning,” Roger said. “She hasn’t come back downstairs yet, so she’s probably hiding somewhere she can take out someone discreetly.” 

“Should I go join her and see if we can take out Nora together?” Bertie asked. 

Roger considered this for a second before nodding. “You’re more use up there with her than down here with us. Kate and I can handle the main floor. You two finish up upstairs and then come join us. Kate and I’ll give you cover so you can get to the stairs.” 

“Roger that.” Roger gave him such a dirty look at that, Bertie was surprised that he didn’t just shoot him then and there. 

“Just go fast,” was all he said. 

Bertie nodded and took off running towards the stairs. There was a lot of loud shouting and banging from behind him, but he ignored it, focusing instead on making it upstairs and finding Etta. 

He reached the top of the stairs and was faced with a dilemma. All of the doors on the top floor were closed. Behind any one of them could be Nora, lying in wait for him to come stumbling in blindly, prepared to avenge her fallen brother who had definitely texted her by now. 

Fortunately he didn’t have to solve the dilemma, as the door to the hallway closet swung open suddenly and he was pulled into darkness. He was soon blinded by a bright light, and he could see Etta’s face illuminated by the flashlight on her phone. She looked more serious than Bertie had ever seen her, a look made more prominent by the flashlight casting shadows on her face. 

“It’s good to see you alive, Bertrand,” she said, her voice lower than normal. 

“Good to see you too,” he said. “Are you okay though? You sound kind of-“ 

“We’re the only two left.” 

“No, I just saw the other two downstairs, they’re fine. We’re doing really well, I took out-“ 

“Bertrand.” Etta grabbed his arms firmly and stared up at him, her eyes blazing. With the copper colour, it seemed as though there were small fires burning inside them. Bertie felt his heart stutter in his chest. Etta seemed powerful and warrior-like and oh so very unfairly attractive right now. “Forget them. We have to assume they’ve died by now and we’re the only two left.” 

“No really, I _just_ saw them, they’re fine.” 

“They’re dead, Bertrand. It’s going to be hard, but we have to move on and-“ 

The door to the closet swung open and Bertie felt a light tap on his arm. It took him a second to adjust to the brightness of the light from the upstairs landing, but when he did, he could see Nora standing there, her gun pointed at the two of them, two bullets at her feet. 

“Do you two not realize how incredibly loud you are?” she said. 

Etta groaned. “Aw man! Well at least you look totally badass, so we can say that we got cool deaths.” 

“You literally died because you were talking too loudly, but sure, whatever helps you sleep tonight after I totally decimate the remainder of your crew!!” And with that Nora flew off down the stairs. 

Etta sighed and turned off her phone’s flashlight before turning to Bertie. “Sorry about that, Bertrand. I think that was mostly my fault.” 

“You’re not completely to blame. I was talking too.” 

“Hm.” Etta headed downstairs and Bertie followed suit. 

The scene that they were greeted with was… intense, to say the least. Somehow, in the small amount of time since Bertie had gone upstairs, the living room had been completely destroyed, and two barricades were made out of the sofas and kitchen chairs. From his spot at the bottom of the stairs, Bertie could see Bollard hiding behind the barricade in the kitchen. Percy, Roger, and Nora were all perched on the back of one of the sofas, while Deep lay flat on the ground behind the coffee table. There was no sign of Kate, but Bertie suspected that she was probably hiding in the other barricade, tucked safely away in the corner. 

“Did you get taken out so soon?” Etta asked Nora. 

She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunately. But at least now I can just enjoy the final showdown without being shot at by your little friend.” 

“I’m taller than you.” Kate’s voice came from the inside of the corner barricade. 

“Only by an inch darling, that barely counts.” 

Bertie noticed Etta’s eyes light up at the darling and she glanced over at him questioningly. He shook his head. “That’s just what she calls Kate,” he said quietly. 

“Bollard!” Deep whined. “I’m all out of bullets! Bring me your gun!” 

“I’m sorry, what?” Bollard said. 

“Your gun! I’m out of bullets, so I need your gun!” 

“How am I supposed to bring you my gun? And what am I supposed to do once you have my gun?” 

“You’ll figure something out. You always do.” 

Bollard groaned loudly. After a moment’s hesitation, she shoved the kitchen table out from its place in her barricade and began rolling it across the floor to where Deep was hiding. Kate popped up from her hiding spot just enough to be able to shoot at her as she went. Unfortunately, the table provided good cover and Bollard made it to Deep still alive. 

Her girlfriend crawled over to her and kissed her cheek. “My hero,” Deep said. 

“I’m going to kill you if you don’t make this shot,” Bollard replied. 

“I have two bullets left!” Kate called out. “And they’ve got your names on them!” 

“Oh come on Kate, don’t write on the toys,” Deep said. The entire room groaned. 

“Hey Kate, catch!” Nora said, before tossing one of her guns into the fortress. It bounced off the wall, and, judging by Kate’s loud yelp, landed right on the girl hiding inside the fort. 

“What the hell was that for?!” Kate yelled. 

“I was hoping that you’d reach up and Deep could shoot your hand…” Nora muttered. “Of course you had to be uncooperative…” 

“Okay babe, I’m going in,” Deep said. “If I don’t return, just know that I always loved you.” 

“What the hell are you-” Bollard said, but it was too late. Deep leapt over the kitchen table and begun running across the room towards Kate’s barricade. Before she could get there, Kate poked her gun through one of the cracks and took her out easily. 

“Welp, that didn’t work,” Deep said. “Here’s your gun back, babe.” 

“I hate you sometimes,” Bollard said, taking the gun. 

The doorbell rang just then, and Percy got up to get it. They all sat in silence for a couple of minutes, trying to make out the muffled voices coming from the doorway. When Percy returned, he looked grumpier. 

“Apparently we’re making too much noise and the neighbours have “kindly” requested that we keep it down and “stop disrupting the peace,”” Percy said mockingly, complete with finger quotes. 

Bertie sighed. “Guess that’s a draw then.” 

“Fine,” Bollard said. “But this is far from over. We’ll duel again. And next time? We’re gonna win.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writing this chapter, you have no idea. Also, I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks if you wanna chat.


	7. Chapter 7

There were many words that Roger would use to describe Etta Perrault. 

Stubborn. Impulsive. Brave. Beautiful. Smart. Incredible. He could probably go on for a while, this girl was really something. But right now, there was only one word that he could think of. 

_Annoying._

Scratch that, make it two words. _Fucking annoying._

They’d gone to the library for what Roger had thought was supposed to be a study session, but Etta had yet to even open her books. Instead, she was rambling on and on about a conversation that she had with Kate earlier that week. Normally Roger would have been more than happy to sit and listen to her talk, but he had a midterm in just a few days and he really needed to study. 

“Etta.” He cut her off mid-sentence. “I need to study.” 

“But I haven’t seen you in ages!” she said. “I’ve been too busy studying for my midterm, but now I’m free! And I can spend time with you again!” 

“It’s been maybe two days.” 

“Is that not ages?” 

Roger glanced up at her. Etta was grinning at him, her eyes sparkling. “Maybe,” he muttered. 

She laughed. “Come on baby, I haven’t seen you for days! I have so much to tell you about!” 

He groaned and rested his head on the table. “I need to study though…” 

“Baaaabbbeeee…” 

“Okay, how about this?” Roger said, lifting his head up. “How about you write me notes? That way you get to tell me everything that you want to talk about, but I still get some studying done.” 

“Sounds fair.” Etta ripped a piece of paper out of her notebook and began writing. 

Roger returned his attention to his textbook. He was behind in the readings for this class, and only had another chapter and a half left. And then it was just reviewing the piles of notes that he had for the course. The piles and piles and piles of notes… 

He was jolted out of his studies by a balled up piece of paper hitting him in the head. He looked up to see Etta grinning at him. 

“Was that really necessary?” Roger asked. 

“No, but it was fun,” Etta said. 

He sighed and unravelled her note. “…This is just a drawing of a dog.” 

“I know! I have too much to tell you, I can’t write it all down!” 

Roger sighed again. “Etta. I need to study.” 

“I know, but my next test isn’t until next week and I’ve been studying all week for my exam this morning. I’m all studied out,” she said. 

“I’ll tell you what. I’ve only got a chapter left. Why don’t you go and find something to do while I finish up my studying, and then we’ll hang out for the rest of the day and you can tell me about everything I’ve missed?” 

Her eyes lit up. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” 

* * *

Finding something to do had proved more difficult than Etta had been expecting. Her first attempt had been to find Kate and see what she was doing. That hadn’t gone quite as well as Etta had been hoping. 

“Etta, I really have to study. This midterm is at 8 AM tomorrow morning. I’m already going to be dying, I don’t need the extra stress of not having studied enough,” Kate had said as soon as Etta had sat down at her table in the library. 

“You don’t even know what I want yet,” Etta had said. 

“I’m guessing you want someone to hang out with because you’re procrastinating your own studying.” 

“I’m not procrastinating. I just don’t have any work.” 

“That sounds like bullshit and you know it. Also you didn’t deny that you were looking for someone to hang out with, so I’m going to have to ask you to please leave. I really, really need to study this.” 

Etta had left Kate alone and decided to go up to the club room to see if there was anyone there that she could hang out with for a bit while Roger finished up his studying. There she found Laura with a mountain of flashcards and Yvette lying facedown on the floor. 

“Is she okay?” Etta said, pointing to Yvette. 

Laura waved her hand. “She’s fine. She just gets like this whenever I ask her questions about dates.” 

“The numbers don’t make sense,” Yvette mumbled into the ground. “The ideas do, but the numbers are stupid.” 

“Come on, you’re doing just fine,” Laura said before mouthing to Etta, _She’s gonna fail._

Etta cringed and backed out of the room slowly, deciding that it was probably best not to disturb them. She could always come back later and see if Yvette had finished failing then. 

She decided to make her way over to one of the lecture buildings. She might run into someone just leaving class and in need of a break, and if not, it had areas for studying so some of her friends might be hanging around there. 

Sure enough, Etta ran into Percy as he was leaving the building. 

“Percy! Are you busy?” She frowned as she remembered something that he had mentioned at dinner on Sunday after their Nerf fight. “Wait no, you have Medieval History with Roger, right? So you’re probably on your way to study, aren’t you?” 

“Study? For what?” he said. 

“Don’t you guys have a huge midterm in a couple of days?” 

“No? That’s not until the end of the month,” Percy scoffed. 

“Really? But Roger said that it’s on Friday,” Etta said. 

“I think I know when my own midterms are,” Percy said. “I think it’s your boyfriend who fucked up. Or he’s lying to get out of spending time with you.” 

Etta stomped on his foot and took pleasure in the soft whimper Percy let out. “Just check it on your phone.” 

Percy pulled out his phone, muttering the entire time. “I’m probably going to be limping all week…” 

“Oh come on, I barely touched you. You’re fine.” 

“Okay okay, see here? I was right. Our midterm’s not until… October 6th… Shit!” Percy went sprinting out of the building. 

“What happened to limping all week?” Etta called after him. He flipped her off before he ran through the doors. 

Etta went to check out the study spaces. On the first floor she found Deep, balancing on one foot and tossing a stress ball back and forth between her hands. Flashcards covered with formulas were spread out across the table in front of her. 

“Oh good, you’re not busy!” Etta said, taking a seat at her table. 

“What gave you that impression?” Deep asked. 

“Well you’re standing on one foot and playing with a ball. That’s not exactly studying.” 

“Standing on one foot increases blood flow to the brain. I throw the ball once for each component of a formula. It promotes quick recall of facts during an examination,” Deep said. 

“I’m not sure that’s right…” Etta said. 

Deep shrugged. “It’s worked for me so far. It may just be a placebo, but it’s a placebo I love.” 

“Don’t you want to take a break though?” she said. “Hang out with a friend? Grab some coffee?” 

“No,” Deep said simply. 

Etta didn’t find anyone else in the lecture building and she didn’t really feel like going to the other end of campus to the other lecture building with study space, so she decided to return to the library. She decided to start at the top and work her way down (the stairs were less miserable that way) and she lucked out with the first private study room that she glanced in. 

“Bollard!” Etta knocked on the door excitedly. “Bollard! Hey! Hey Bollard!” 

Bollard looked up at her slowly and Etta finally understood what Bertie meant when he said that she was absolutely terrifying. Her brown eyes were smouldering and Etta wasn’t entirely certain that she wasn’t about to shoot lasers out of them. Bollard slowly dragged a finger across her throat and Etta sprinted for the staircase, not even caring to check if there was anyone else on the sixth floor. 

The last person on her list was huddled over a desk in the corner of the fifth floor, her red hair unravelling from her braid where she pulled on it out of stress. 

“Nora!” Etta leaned over her desk. “You look like you could use a break!” 

Nora looked up at her slowly. “I have an exam at seven tonight,” she hissed. “I don’t have time for breaks.” 

“Sure you do! You know what they say about cramming being bad for students’ memories! Oh, you’ve missed a text message. Want me to read it out for you?” Etta grabbed the phone off the desk before she could respond and read the message out loud. “”Etta’s bored and looking for people to annoy. Hide.”” 

“Oops. Sorry you had to see that,” Nora said dryly. “Will you please leave me alone now?” 

Etta pouted. “I’m not looking to _annoy_ people. I just wanna hang out. It’s not my fault you all still have exams.” 

“Don’t you have another next week?” 

“Yeah, but Thanksgiving break is before then. I have tons of time to study.” 

“Great. Well I don’t, so will you please go and have sex with your boyfriend or something and just leave me alone?” 

“Number one, we don’t have sex. Number two, even if we _did_ we wouldn’t do it at school. That’s just gross and unhygienic and-“ 

“Wait, you two aren’t having sex?” Nora looked interested by that. 

Etta shrugged. “No. Anyways, it’s also just really-“ 

“Whoa whoa whoa wait, why aren’t you having sex?” 

“I don’t really see how that’s any of your business.” 

“You’re the one who brought it up, kiddo.” 

“Technically you did,” Etta pointed out. 

Nora rolled her eyes. “Look, either tell me the juicy details, or leave me alone to study.” 

“Not that it’s any of your business, but we’re waiting until after his surgery. But it’s not your business.” 

“Right, that’s why you told me. Because it’s not my business. Well, if you ever want a good time-“ 

Etta wrinkled her nose. “I’m not going to cheat on Roger. And if I did, it definitely wouldn’t be with you.” 

Nora laughed. “Sure kiddo. Let me know how long the whole no sex thing lasts before it stops being fun and acceptable.” 

Etta chose not to respond to that and instead headed down towards the fourth floor. On her way down, she realized that she hadn’t checked her own phone in a while and should probably check to see if Roger had texted her yet. 

Sure enough, he had texted her a few times: once about twenty minutes after she left the table, once about twenty minutes after that, and once just a couple minutes ago. 

**_Okay, I finished my chapter. Shockingly easy to study after the squirrel that was at my table left. Still want to go out tonight?_ **

**_Etta?_ **

**_I’m sorry I called you a squirrel, please stop ignoring my texts._ **

As Etta began typing out a response, she wondered if she could get Roger to begin calling her Squirrel as an affectionate nickname.


	8. Chapter 8

Roger was not nervous. He was not nervous at all. Etta had been over to his house for Thanksgiving plenty of times before. It was practically tradition at this point, since her aunt had been out of town for both Thanksgivings that they had known each other and his mother had insisted every time that she spend it with them. And of course she had spent weekends and spring breaks with them too. It wasn’t like this was the first time she was meeting his family. 

And yet… It was. This was the first time she’d be meeting them as his girlfriend. And that was different from meeting them as his best friend. Abby had already texted him to tell him that their parents were determined not to leave them alone in a room together. Which was just the start of a very promising weekend. 

“Roger!” He turned to see Etta running down the bus terminal towards him. “Oh thank god, I thought I was gonna be late!” 

“We’ve still got about five minutes, don’t worry.” 

“Good.” She dropped her bag down and sat down crosslegged next to it. “Are you texting Abby?” 

“Yeah. Apparently my parents are going to be really strict about us being around each other.” 

“You could always say that we’ve broken up but decided to remain friends,” Etta said. 

Roger scoffed. “Yeah, that’ll go over great with them.” 

“Might get us at least a minute of privacy this weekend though.” 

“I think privacy at my parents’ house is officially off the table.” 

“Hm. Worth it though.” 

“You think so?” Roger said. 

Etta looked up at him, surprised. “Of course. I’d much rather be dating you and have your parents breathing down our necks than not be dating you at all.” 

“It’s not just my parents though. My sisters’ll be asking you all kinds of questions.” 

“So? I love your sisters.” 

“No, you love Abby, because she’s calm and rational. Astra and Liv are nightmares,” Roger said. 

“You only think that because you’re remembering what they were like when you were in high school. I’ve met the mature, sensible- okay, I can’t get through that sentence.” 

Roger rolled his eyes. “I told you so.” 

“They’re still not as bad as you make them out to be,” Etta said. “I mean, Liv’s in middle school now. She’s bound to have matured at least a little bit since you saw her last.” 

“You’re just saying that because you have a soft spot for her.” 

“So what if I do? She’s sweet. Most of the time.” 

“She’s not going to be sweet this weekend. She’s going to be nosy.” 

“Which is exactly why I brought this!” Etta pulled a stuffed turkey out of her bag. 

“What’s that for?” Roger asked. 

“I intend to buy your sister’s silence.” 

“Yeah, that’s not going to work.” 

“It’s totally going to work!" 

It didn’t work. 

As soon as the stuffed turkey was in Liv’s hands, her promise not to ask questions went right out the window. 

“So do you guys kiss then?” she asked. 

Roger sighed and got up. “Yeah, I’m out of here.” 

Etta grabbed his arm and pulled him back down onto the couch. “Play nice,” she whispered. Louder to Liv, she said, “Only sometimes. But things really haven’t changed-“ 

“Isn’t that hard with his glasses though?” Liv said. 

“Not really.” 

“Etta,” Roger hissed. She just shrugged in reply. 

“Siani made out with Dave and she said that his braces got in the way,” Liv said. “I wouldn’t make out with someone with braces. What if they had food stuck in them?” 

Etta bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “That’s a good point.” 

“But I guess glasses aren’t quite as gross as braces cause stuff can’t stuck in them. Except for your hair. Does your hair ever get stuck in Roger’s glasses?” 

“Not yet.” 

There was a loud crashing noise from upstairs and Roger groaned. “I’ll go check on it.” 

Etta shot him a look that said _you are not leaving me to deal with this alone!_ He just gave her one back that said _you said you could handle her._

The source of the crashing noise was his other younger sister, Astra. More specifically, it was the giant mountain of books that she had sent falling to the floor. She was currently trying to restack them next to her already full bookshelf. 

“You alright?” Roger asked. 

Astra looked up and pulled out her headphones. “Roger! When did you get here?” 

“Like ten minutes ago.” 

“Oh. I had my headphones in.” 

“I can see that.” 

“Is Etta here too?” 

“Yep.” 

Astra ran past him and headed downstairs. Roger smiled slightly to himself. His sisters had always loved Etta, particularly Astra, since Etta always had plenty of book recommendations for her to read. Not that she really needed them… 

“Hey kid, when did you get home?” 

Roger turned to see Abby standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Abby was a couple of years older than him, but had chosen to stay at home for college. He’d used to worry that she had chosen to stay because he was sick, but she was working on her Master’s now and had stayed at the same school, so it must have been more than that. 

Or she had just grown to love the school. Either way, it had all worked out in her favour. 

“Ten minutes ago. Is the top floor soundproof now or something?” Roger said. 

“I was working on a paper and ignoring the rest of the world, relax.” Abby walked over and took his chin in her hand, tilting his head side to side as she examined his face. “Are you doing your homework? Eating lots of spinach? Exercising?” 

Roger pushed her hand away. “Yes. I’m fine.” 

“You don’t look fine. You look like you haven’t slept in a week. Are you not sleeping again? You need to sleep. You can’t be healthy if you don’t sleep.” 

“I am sleeping, I’m just stressed.” 

“Stop being stressed, that’s not healthy,” she said. 

“Abby,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “I’m fine. Really.” 

Abby frowned. “I’ll try to trust you, but you know I’ll just keep worrying…” 

“I know. So how about you worry about the person who hasn’t eaten a vegetable in the last week?” 

Abby gasped, horrified. “What?! Etta!” 

“What’s wrong?” Etta said, coming up the stairs. 

“You haven’t eaten a vegetable in the last week?!” 

“That’s an exaggeration. It’s probably only been a few days.” 

Abby let out a small whimper before grabbing Etta’s hand and dragging her back downstairs. 

“Whoa!” Etta said. “Where are you taking me?” 

“To get a carrot in you!” 

* * *

“It’s weird,” Bertie said, lying back on the sofa. 

“What is?” Kate raised her voice slightly so that he could hear her over the sound of the microwave. She was heating up popcorn for their weekly movie night, something that had become a tradition over the last few weeks. She and Bertie had decided to have it on their own while the other two were out of town. 

“Well it’s just that we haven’t known Etta and Roger for very long, and we’ve been having the movie nights for even less time than that, but it feels wrong not to have them here,” he said. 

Kate leaned against the kitchen doorframe. “That’s true. I kind of miss them arguing.” 

“They don’t argue all the time.” Kate raised her eyebrows at him. Bertie laughed. “Okay, yeah, they argue a lot. But they’re still a ton of fun.” 

“Oh, I never said they weren’t,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting to miss it.” 

“I think I’ll tell Etta we miss her,” Bertie said. “Roger would just be awkward if I mentioned it to him.” 

Kate chuckled. “Yeah, he’s not so good with emotions. I wonder how those two ever even got together.” 

Bertie shrugged as he texted Etta. A minute later, his phone rang. 

“It’s Etta,” he said. 

“Put her on speaker,” Kate said, sitting on the sofa arm. 

“Hey Etta,” Bertie said as he answered it. 

“Hey,” Kate said. 

“Hey guys!” Etta’s voice sounded echoey with the speaker phone turned on. “Are you having the movie night without us?” 

“Yep. Better way to pass a Saturday night than studying,” Kate said. 

“Okay well just don’t watch The Parent Trap,” she said. “I want to watch that one next week.” 

“I still can’t believe you haven’t seen that,” Bertie said. 

“We all have gaps in our knowledge.” 

“Yours is just kind of sad.” 

“Hey! At least it’s not a bad one! What happened to me being above average for knowing how periods work?” 

“You lost that when I found out that you don’t know what happens in The Parent Trap. Now you’re just average,” Bertie said. 

There was a huff from the other end and Kate knew without having to see her that Etta was pouting. 

“How’s Roger’s?” Kate said. 

“It’s not too bad,” Etta said. “His family’s great, although they’re a little different now that we’re dating. His mom asked me about kids earlier.” 

“Kids? Really?” Bertie looked a little ill and Kate squeezed his shoulder. 

“I know right? We’re in university, we can’t be thinking about kids!” 

“Bet she was glad to hear that,” Kate said. 

“Actually I think she was kind of disappointed? She said we should start thinking about it now because adoption takes a while.” 

“But you aren’t even married! And you’ve only been dating a few months!” Bertie said, his voice raised slightly. He looked distressed. 

“I guess she thinks we’re going to last because we’ve been friends for a while. But it hasn’t actually been that long in reality and-“ 

Bertie handed the phone to Kate and hurried out the door. Kate frowned. “Hey Etta?” 

“Yeah?” she said. 

“I think I’m gonna have to let you go if that’s alright. The popcorn’s burning,” she lied. 

“But you-“ 

Kate hung up and went after Bertie. She found him outside on the street, shivering in the autumn night air. “Okay, what’s going on?” she said. 

Bertie didn’t look at her. “Nothing,” he muttered. 

“Do you really think I’m that stupid? You just rang out in the middle of a phone call looking like you were about to be sick.” 

“I just got anxious,” he muttered. 

“Oh come on. I know you better than that. If it was anxiety you would have gone to your room. This was something else. Spit it out before you freeze.” 

“It’s only like six degrees, I’m not going to-“ 

“Bertie!” Kate snapped. 

He sighed and glanced over at her. He had tear tracks on his cheeks and they shone under the streetlights. “You’re going to hate me.” 

“I could never hate you. You’re my best friend.” 

“And you’re mine.” 

“I know that, stop stalling,” Kate said. 

Bertie stared down at the pavement for a long time before sighing. “I think I might have feelings for Etta. Like, romantic feelings.” 

Kate looked at him for a few moments before walking over and putting her arms around him. Bertie’s head immediately dropped to her shoulder. “Yeah, I don’t hate you,” she said. 

“You should,” he mumbled. “She’s in a relationship. I shouldn’t be thinking of her that way.” 

“You can’t help it. It’s just the way you feel.” 

“Well I should be able to help it!” Bertie said, pulling away from her. “I should be able to control my emotions and stop feeling these things!” 

“Bertie, that’s impossible,” Kate said. 

“Maybe it’s not! Maybe if I just ignore it - if I ignore _her_ \- it’ll all just go away.” 

“You know what’ll go away if you ignore Etta? Etta. Your feelings may suck, but not having her in your life? That’s gonna suck a whole lot more.” 

“But I can’t stand the idea of them together! I hate it! And I don’t hate stuff!” 

“I know it’s difficult, but-“ 

Bertie cut her off. “It’s more than difficult. It’s impossible.” 

“You’re being overdramatic,” Kate said. “Remember when I thought I couldn’t spend time with Roger because I thought Etta was hot?” 

“That’s different! You just thought she was hot. I think that she’s perfect. I can’t _stop_ thinking about her! Spending time around her hurts because I just spend the entire time thinking that she’s the most incredible person I’ve ever met and it’s not fair that she’s with someone that’s not going to tell her that every day!” 

“Bertie.” Kate put her hands on his shoulders. He was hyperventilating slightly. “You don’t know that-“ 

“I do know it though! And that’s why you should hate me, because I can’t stop thinking how unfair it is that they don’t make sense! But we would. We would make perfect sense.” 

“You’ve known them a month. They’ve known each other for years. There’s bound to be stuff that Roger knows about Etta that you don’t. And vice versa. We don’t know them well enough yet to make that kind of judgement.” 

Bertie sat down on the steps outside his apartment. “I told you you would hate me.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Kate said, sitting down next to him. “I just think you’re jumping ahead a little bit.” 

“You think it’s too soon for me to have feelings for her.” 

“No. I think part of you’s always been in love with Etta. But I do think that it’s a little hasty to be saying that you’d be a better match for her than her boyfriend is.” 

Bertie wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. “I want to be. It’s easier to deal with the feelings if I think that.” 

“I know. But setting aside your feelings for a second. Is Roger really that bad of a guy? If you didn’t want to date Etta, would you still think they were such a terrible match?” 

Bertie looked thoughtful for a minute. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He groaned. “I just… It’s not fair, okay? I want to be able to hate him. I want to be able to think that they’re a terrible match and she should be with me, even if it’s not true.” 

“But you don’t?” Kate said. 

He sighed. “No. He’s a good guy. I just wish he wasn’t.” 

“No you don’t. Because then Etta would be miserable.” 

“No. I don’t. I want her to be happy. I’m just selfish enough to wish that she was happy with me.” 

Kate put an arm around his shoulders. “You’re a good guy, Bertie.” 

“No. I’m not.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Thanksgiving. 

It was a day that Bertie dreaded the entire year. After Christmas and Easter, it was the day that he was traditionally expected to spend the most time with his family. And after those two days, his birthday, and December 5th, it was the day that he missed his parents the most out of the year. 

Whenever customers came into the shop during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, they always asked him if he was going to spend the day with his family. Bertie always smiled and said that yes, they always had a big dinner with the extended family. It wasn’t a lie per-say: he just wasn’t spending the day with his blood family. 

After his parents had died, his uncle had come to look after him for a couple of years. Preben had been a decent enough guardian, but he had never really gotten used to the idea of Bertie being trans. He was convinced that it was just a phase and he’d “come around” soon enough. It wasn’t like Preben wouldn’t welcome him for Thanksgiving, but Bertie didn’t really see the point of travelling an hour and a half only to spend the day being misgendered - not to mention that Preben would be less than happy about Bertie’s decision to start HRT - when he could take a twenty minute bus ride and then spend the day in a welcoming environment that would use his correct name and pronouns. 

Kate’s family was great. Not only were they accepting of him, but one of her dads was trans, so he could offer him all sorts of advice on how to pass and was more than willing to listen to him complain about how hard transitioning could be sometimes. The only downside was that they invited all of the cousins, which meant that the probability of Bollard being there was high. 

Kate met him when he got off the bus. “How are you feeling today?” she asked. 

Bertie wrinkled his nose. He’d been hoping that she’d have forgotten all about his freakout the night before. “Great,” he said dryly. 

She took his hand. “It’s gonna be okay. Come on, we’ll stuff ourselves with turkey and forget all about girls.” 

“But then I’ll forget all about you.” 

“Then we’ll forget about all girls except for me.” 

Bertie followed her to her house. “Is Bollard coming this year?” 

“She comes every year,” Kate said. “She’s bringing Deep though, so she’ll probably be too distracted to pick on you.” 

“She’s bringing Deep?” 

“Yeah. Guess it’s getting kind of serious.” 

“Well they are living together.” 

Kate scoffed and rolled her eyes. “They were living together before they started dating, that doesn’t count.” 

“It’s still a higher level than meeting the extended family that lives in town. Right?” 

Kate shrugged. “I guess each relationship has different levels. I mean-” She stopped talking quickly and instead pretended to check her phone. 

“Kate?” Bertie said, concerned. 

“It’s nothing,” she said, very obviously pretending to text. 

“You were going to say something about Etta spending the weekend at Roger’s, weren’t you?” 

“No.” Kate looked like she was about to make a fake phone call just to get him to shut up. 

He sighed. “It’s not a big deal. Really. You were right, I was overreacting.” 

“Not that badly.” 

“Kate. I said some really shitty stuff. It was definitely an overreaction.” 

“But not that bad of one!” Kate stopped walking. “You’re acting like you said that you wished Roger were dead. Are you planning on breaking them up?” 

“No,” Bertie said, slightly hurt that she would think so. 

“So you’re jealous. Big surprise! Lots of people are jealous when the person they like is dating someone else.” 

“But she was dating him before we met.” 

“So? That doesn’t make any difference. If they got together the day after you met, would that change anything?” 

“No.” 

“Then it shouldn’t make a difference that it was two months earlier,” Kate said. “Come on, I want to get some of the cranberry cookies before Bollard eats them all.” 

Kate’s dads were thrilled to see the two of them, particularly Bertie whom they hadn’t seen since the end of the summer. Alister immediately began asking him questions about the flower shop, while Hardwin pulled Kate into the kitchen to help with the vegetables. 

“But Bollard’s not here yet! I can have cookies before they’re all gone!” she said. 

“Or you could peel carrots really fast and _then_ have cookies before your cousin devours them all!” Hardwin said. 

“Why aren’t you making Bertie help out?” 

“Bertie’s a guest,” Alister said. 

“So am I! I don’t live here anymore!” Kate said. 

“Still not a guest.” 

Kate made a soft grumbling noise before fevourously attacking the carrots with the peeler. Bertie was pleased that Alister didn’t move to go into the living room, but instead remained in the hallway near the kitchen. As much as he liked Kate’s dads, Bertie wasn’t particularly comfortable with small talk, and it was good to have Kate nearby to interject with a snarky remark when need be.

Bollard and her family showed up about twenty minutes after Kate and Bertie got there, Deep following them in with her usual serene smile on. Kate had managed to get to the cookies before her cousin, and had even been kind enough to leave her a few (although that was greatly due to her parents telling her and Bertie not to spoil their appetite before dinner). Bollard did not seem to be in as kind a mood. 

“Hey weirdo, you look constipated,” she said, sitting next to him on the couch. 

Bertie sighed. “Hi Bollard.” 

“What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing,” he lied. 

“Seriously? Then why does your face look so weird?” 

“Bollard,” Deep said, sitting across from them. “Be nice. Bertie’s obviously not having a good day.” 

“Yeah? What happened?” she asked. 

“I told you, everything’s fine,” Bertie said. 

“Everything’s fine is code for everything’s a disaster,” Bollard said. 

“Come on Bertie,” Deep said, leaning forward. “We’re your friends. You can tell us what’s bothering you.” 

“Since when are we friends?” he said. And even if they were, Bertie doubted that he would tell them anything. He didn’t think he’d even tell Laura about his horrible crush, and he was definitely closer with her than with Bollard or Deep. 

“Well I consider you my friend,” Deep said. “I thought we had something special. There was that time when we, um… Or that other time when you uh…” 

“Oh come on, even I can think of a good memory with Bertie! That doesn’t involve me being even somewhat rude or mean,” Bollard said, raising a hand to stop Bertie as he opened his mouth to speak. 

“Well we haven’t known each other as long as you two have,” Deep said. “This obviously just means that we have to spend more time together. Bertie, when do you have time off from your little bakery?” 

“It’s a flower shop,” Bertie said. 

“That’s what I said.” 

Bollard groaned. “That’s horrible.” 

“What’s- Oh!” Bertie smiled slightly. “That’s funny.” 

“See? We get each other, Bertrand. Which is all the more reason for us to spend time together!” Deep said. 

“It’s Bertie,” he said. 

“What? I thought it was both.” 

“It is, I just- I prefer Bertie.” 

“He’s annoyingly picky about that,” Bollard said, rolling her eyes. 

“Hm. I could have sworn I heard someone referring to you as Bertrand,” Deep said. “Anyways-“ 

“His weird little friend calls him that. The loud one.” 

“Bollard, I was talking! Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to interrupt?” 

“Excuse me,” Bertie said quietly, slipping away to the bathroom. When Kate came in ten minutes later, she found him sitting on the edge of the tub, playing on his phone. 

“Why are you on the tub?” she asked. 

“I’m avoiding Bollard and Deep,” Bertie said. 

“Then why not just lock the door and sit on the toilet cover?” Kate said. 

“I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone,” he said, glancing up at her. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Locking the door would be an inconvenience.” 

“Okay, then why not just on the toilet cover?” 

“The tub is more comfortable.” 

“If you say so.” Kate locked the door and sat down on the toilet cover. Bertie climbed into the tub so that she had enough leg room. “So is Bollard being an ass to you again?” 

Bertie sighed. “Not really. She was actually being kind of nice. It was a little creepy.” 

“Please don’t call my cousin creepy. She really is sweet, she just has to get used to you. A lot,” Kate added at his disbelieving look. 

“I guess.” 

“So then why are you hiding from her and Deep?” 

“It’s not really that big a deal,” Bertie said. “They just think that something’s wrong and I got the impression that they wouldn’t stop bothering me until I told them what it was.” 

“But isn’t something wrong?” Kate said. 

“Sure, but I’m not about to tell them that.” 

Kate laughed. “Yeah, probably a good idea. Deep would probably start trying to break Etta and Roger up.” 

“I doubt she would do that for me,” Bertie said. 

“Hey, you never know. She’s very enthusiastic.” 

He laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. But more than that, I just couldn’t bear the idea of Bollard knowing. She would make fun of me for the next decade.” 

“You think that Bollard’s never had a thing for someone in a relationship? Heck, you really think that she doesn’t have her own embarrassing stories?” Kate said. 

“You’ve got dirt on Bollard?” 

“Mountains of it. Including dirt on mountains, actually.” 

Bertie smiled slightly. “Thanks.” 

“What for?” she said. 

“Making me feel better. This whole thing, it’s… It’s been tough.” 

Kate rested a hand on his knee. “You need to stop beating yourself up, okay? Promise me that.” 

“I promise I’ll try,” Bertie said. 

“Well, trying’s good enough.” 

He chuckled. “We should make that our toast tonight.” 

Kate laughed. “To trying! It’s good enough!” 

* * *

One great side effect of the house being crowded for Thanksgiving: it got a lot easier to get some alone time. 

Roger and Etta were hiding out in his room for the time being, hoping that no one would notice that they were missing for at least half an hour. Etta had curled up into Roger’s side as soon as they had sat on the bed and he was happy enough to just lie there with his arms around her. Roger wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of physical affection, but he didn’t mind it so much when they were alone. Especially not when Etta looked as cute as she did today. She looked like the perfect embodiment of fall in a yellow dress with small brown leaves on it and a yellow wool sweater pulled over top of it. 

Etta nestled her head into Roger’s neck. “It’s cold,” she mumbled. 

He rubbed her arms gently. “You should’ve worn tights.” 

“I forgot them at home.” 

“Of course you did,” Roger said, trying not to smile. 

“Can’t I just go and sleep next to the oven? It’ll be so cozy and warm and smell so good…” 

“And you’ll be in the way. What? Am I not warm and nice smelling enough for you?” 

“No, you are. You just don’t smell like turkey. Turkey cooking is one of the best smells in the world, didn’t you know that?” Etta said. 

“Hm.” 

She looked up at him. “Do you think I did something wrong?” 

“What?” 

“With Bertie and Kate. Do you think that I upset them somehow?” 

“Etta. Bertie told you that they missed you. I’m sure it was nothing,” Roger said. 

“But they left so suddenly. Maybe I said-“ 

“Etta.” 

She was quiet for a minute. “Would it be all that surprising if I did though?” 

“Of course it would be. You may be kind of dim sometimes, but you’re not mean. Have you heard anything from them today?” 

Etta shook her head. “Not yet. Kate said they were going over to her parents’ for dinner and would be there the whole afternoon though, so-“ 

“So they’re probably just busy. Maybe you just reminded them of something that they forgot to do before they went over,” Roger said. 

“But Kate said it was because they were burning the popcorn,” Etta said. “And we always have microwave popcorn at our movie nights.” 

“Maybe they usually had stovetop popcorn and missed it. Or maybe they just wanted to try something different.” He kissed her forehead gently. “This is just your brain playing tricks on you. It’s trying to tell you that you’ve messed up because “you always do,” but you haven’t. You don’t.” 

Etta buried her face in his chest. “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled. 

Roger stroked her hair. “Of course.” 

“I’m not getting your shirt wet.” 

“What? Oh, Etta.” He pulled her closer, his heart sinking as he felt her shaking in his arms. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s fine.” 

“Sorry,” Etta said, her voice cracking as she tried to keep it steady. 

Roger shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for. You’ve done nothing wrong.” 

She nodded quickly but kept her face hidden. It took her a few minutes, but soon Etta had stopped crying. 

“Are you okay?” Roger asked quietly. 

She nodded. “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t need to apologize for it. You can’t help it.” 

Etta wiped her eyes. “I hate depression. It’s stupid and annoying.” 

“I’m sure it is,” Roger said. 

“You’re lucky your brain doesn’t suck.” 

“The rest of your brain doesn’t suck. Just the serotonin.” 

She laughed slightly. “Yeah. Just that bit.” 

“The rest of it’s pretty great.” 

Etta rested her head on his shoulder. “Yeah? 

“Yeah.” Roger ran a hand through her hair absentmindedly. “It’s pretty damn smart, first of all. Knows a lot about communications and biology.” 

“I’m not-“ 

Roger stopped her. “You’re very smart. And I’m not done yet.” 

“Well by all means, continue. I’d love to hear it. Even if it might not be true.” 

“You’re loyal. And trustworthy. And kind. And funny. And creative. You’re the only person I know who can make disgusting abominations of desserts sound somewhat appealing. You’re annoyingly good with animals and monopolize all of Bob’s time when you come over.” 

“It’s not my fault your cat likes me more than you,” Etta said. 

“You interrupt people a lot. But that’s okay sometimes because you’re sort of cute. You’re stubborn, and sometimes I hate that and want to scream at you but sometimes it reminds me of why I fell in love with you in the first place.” 

“Aw, you’re in love with me?” Etta said, lifting her head to look at him. 

Roger felt his ears heat up. “Yes. No. Maybe. Just a bit.” 

Etta smiled and kissed him softly. “I’m in love with you too,” she murmured. 

“You’re really annoying,” Roger said, continuing his list. “And you don’t know when to shut up.” 

“These have gotten a lot less sweet.” 

“Will you just let me finish?” 

“Of course not, I don’t know when to shut up.” 

Roger huffed and rolled his eyes. “You’re entirely too short. You can’t even reach the peanut butter in your own apartment.” 

“Okay, that’s not my fault. I can’t control my height anymore than you can control your terrible vision,” Etta said. 

“And,” Roger finished, “you are a hell of a lot closer to perfect than anyone I’ve ever met, so your brain can go fuck itself and stop making you think otherwise.” 

Etta smiled. “That was weirdly sweet.” 

“Hm.” 

“You left one out though.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I’m the best kisser you’ve ever met.” 

“Seeing as you’re the only person I’ve ever kissed, I don’t really think I can make that judge-“ 

“Shut up,” Etta muttered, cutting him off with a kiss. When she pulled back a minute later, Roger smiled. 

“Yeah, okay. I might have missed one.” 

“Told you so.” Etta lay down next to him again. “Although we should probably be careful about that. Wouldn’t want your mom to catch us.” 

“Oh, she’d be thrilled,” Roger said dryly. “She would only yell at us for ten minutes instead of an hour.” 

“I don’t get the big deal. It’s not like we’re having sex.” 

“We know that. My parents’ll think we are though.” 

“Parents are so strange,” Etta said almost wistfully. Roger rubbed her back gently. She shook her shoulders, as though getting rid of the sorrow. “Oh well. We’ll just have to keep an ear out.” 

“Are you going to be okay for the rest of the day?” Roger asked. “Or do you want to sleep for a bit?” 

“Mm. Sleep sounds nice.” Etta burrowed back into his neck. 

“Have you been sleeping alright?” 

“Not really since we got here. I mean, it’s not been _bad_ , but…” 

“Well see if you can rest now.” 

“I should be able to. You’re here after all.” 

Sure enough, Etta was asleep in a matter of minutes. Roger grabbed his phone from the bedside table and sent a message off to Kate. 

_Are you two okay?_

**oh yeah, we’re great. we’re hanging out in the bathroom to avoid bollard. all totally normal.**

_That doesn’t sound normal._

**it totally is. thanksgiving tradition. right up there with turkey and mashed potatoes.**

_Sure._

_Anyways, one of you should probably message Etta and explain whatever the hell happened last night._

**you mean when bertie burned the popcorn?**

_Yeah. Just tell her that’s all that happened and it wasn’t anything she did._

**shit, is she thinking that she did something wrong?**

**it’s nothing to do with her, really.**

_Just tell her that. I think it would set her mind at ease._

**roger that**

_I hate you._

**it’s thanksgiving, you’re supposed to be grateful that i’m in your life.**

_Sure. Still hate you._

**:D**

The door to his room swung open and Abby walked in. “Ooo. What do we have here?” 

Roger shushed her. “You’re going to wake Etta up,” he whispered. 

“And why is there a girl sleeping in your bed? Also how long did you two manage this because I’m kind of impressed.” 

“It’s been about forty-five minutes.” 

“Damn, and neither Mom nor Dad noticed? Please, teach me your ways,” Abby said. 

“Will you just go away so that Etta can sleep?” Roger said, trying to keep his voice down as much as possible. 

“Shut up,” Etta muttered, wrapping an arm around him. 

Abby smirked and Roger wished that he could move so that he could throw the pillow at her. “She was talking to you,” he told her. 

“I meant you,” Etta mumbled, still half-asleep. “When you talk it makes your neck rumble and while it feels nice, it’s really hard to fall asleep with.” 

Abby’s face softened and she closed the door before sitting down on the floor. “Compromise,” she said to Roger as she took out her phone. “Mom and Dad’ll be happy, and your girlfriend gets to sleep.” 

“Thanks,” he said quietly. 

Etta grumbled and curled closer to him. “What did I say about rumbling?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on tumblr @pillowcreeks. Feedback is greatly appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention this last chapter, but I'm writing them as Canadian because I can't be bothered to research American stuff and TECHNICALLY the show never states their nationalities, so it's still only mid-October in the fic.

Bertie wasn’t alone with Etta until about a week after Thanksgiving. She came into the shop towards the end of the day, wearing a green jacket that’s sleeves were too long for her and boots that looked like they could crush rocks. It was a surprisingly badass look for someone whose typical appearance could be summed up as “cute.” 

“Hey Bertrand,” Etta walked over to him, her boots clomping as she went. “How’s it going?” 

“I think you’re spending too much time with Kate, you’re starting to look like her,” he said. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment. I’d love to look like the sexy leader of a motorcycle gang.” 

_You’re already sexy,_ Bertie didn’t say. Instead, he just handed her a watering can. “Help me close up?” 

“Sure.” 

Bertie locked up before heading over to the till to count the money. He tried to focus on the task at hand, but kept getting distracted by Etta trying to water the flowers on the top shelves. 

“Did you have to put these so high up, Bertrand? How are people even supposed to take them down to buy them?” she said, wobbling as she stood on her tiptoes to water the iberis. 

“Most people aren’t the size of a tall child,” he said. 

“I’m sorry, did you want me to help you?” 

Bertie smiled to himself. “Yes. Please continue.” 

“I think I’m just going to leave the top ones for you. I don’t want to cause a huge mess all over your floor.” Etta set the watering can down on the counter before taking a seat on the stool Bertie had out for customers to sit on while they told him what type of flowers they wanted to order for larger events. 

“It’s appreciated. What brought you by?” 

“Oh, I just realized that I haven’t seen very much of you lately. I’ve been so busy with school, I feel like I’ve probably been ignoring you.” 

Bertie felt his stomach twist. The truth was, he had ignored Kate’s advice and had been avoiding Etta slightly ever since Thanksgiving. It wasn’t like he wasn’t talking to her anymore - they still texted almost every day and they’d seen each other at the weekly movie night (where they’d watched The Parent Trap as promised and Bertie had tried not to die at the sound of Etta’s laugh) - but he didn’t text her first and he erred on the side of caution with his replies. 

“You haven’t been ignoring me,” he said. “I know you’re busy with school and can’t talk to me all the time.” 

“But I want to talk to you all the time.” Etta leaned forward on the stool, resting her arms against the counter. “I want to hear all about your day, every single detail. It’s no fun if I don’t get to talk to you a lot.” 

“Good thing I’ve got a reliable signal,” Bertie said. 

Etta laughed and he felt his stomach flip. Her laugh was like a burst of sunlight. It was a terrible cliche. _Bertie_ was a terrible cliche. “I know, I’m horribly clingy. I make a terrible girlfriend,” she said.  

“I wouldn’t say that,” Bertie said before he could help himself. 

Luckily Etta thought that he had been talking about her other statement. “Oh, are you sure? I could climb onto your back if you’d like and show you. Bet it wouldn’t be so easy to count cash then.” 

“I don’t think it would be.” 

“Anyways, I just wanted to come by and ask if you’d like to go grab a drink or something. There’s a place nearby that serves great apple cider,” Etta said. 

Bertie smiled at her. “Yeah. That’d be nice.” 

“Well then I guess I’d better help you finish up closing. What else needs to be done?” 

“If you could sweep, that would be great. The broom might be too tall for you though.” 

“Shut up.” 

With the two of them working together, it wasn’t long before they were heading out into the cool night air of mid-October. Bertie finally understood why she was wearing a jacket with such long sleeves as Etta pulled her sleeves over her hands and closed them into fists. She looked like she had little green paws, which took away from the badassery of the rest of her outfit. The wind was whipping her curls around her head, and she huddled closer to Bertie. 

Bertie’s heart thudded in his chest. “You alright?” he asked. 

“I’m trying to hide from the wind,” she said. “You’re tall, so you provide good cover.” 

“Why not just wear a warmer jacket?” 

“That doesn’t stop my face from freezing off.” 

Bertie laughed and held the door to the coffee shop open for her. Etta darted inside quickly. 

“It’s not even winter yet, the wind has no right to be that cold,” she muttered. 

“I find scarves to be quite effective at beating the wind,” Bertie said. “As are hats. And actual mittens.” 

Etta swatted him with her sleeve. “I didn’t know it would be so windy this morning!” 

They got their apple ciders and settled into a pair of comfy armchairs towards the back of the shop. 

“So how’d your midterms go?” Bertie asked. 

Etta grimaced. “Not great. October’s a rough month for me mentally speaking, with the change of seasons and everything, so all the school stress just makes everything worse.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know-“ 

“It’s fine,” she interrupted. “I don’t really talk about it that much, so how would you?” 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Bertie said. 

“This is good,” Etta said. “Spending time with friends is really helpful because it gets me out of the house which makes me feel a bit more alive. It’s been a bit better this year since I’ve had more people to annoy than just Roger.” 

“You’re not annoying me,” Bertie said. 

Etta laughed somewhat bitterly. “Just wait until I don’t talk to you for a week because phones are heavy.” 

“That won’t annoy me. It might worry me a little though. Then just wait until I have a panic attack and can’t leave my apartment and call you freaking out.” 

“Awww, Bertrand!” Etta leaned over and gave him a very awkward and uncomfortable hug over the arms of the chairs. 

“You should be awwwing yourself!” he said. “That sounds just as sucky.” 

“I’ve gotten used to it,” she said. 

“And I’ve gotten used to the anxiety.” 

“We shouldn’t have had to though.” 

Bertie shrugged. “That’s life. So… you’ve been doing lots of stuff with the others then?” 

“Yeah!” Etta perked up and Bertie felt his stomach twist with guilt. “Well, I haven’t _done_ it yet, cause midterms, but we’ve got plans. That’s what we need!” 

“What, showing up at my shop randomly doesn’t work with your schedule?” 

Etta laughed. “No, I’ll still do that. You couldn’t stop me from doing that. But we need concrete plans as well. Stuff to look forward to, y’know?” 

“Yeah. Well I need to go buy pumpkins for the shop next weekend, why don’t you come with me?” Bertie said. 

“Ooo yeah, that sounds fun! Are you going to an actual pumpkin patch for them too?” 

“Mmhm.” 

“Okay, I’m definitely in then. I haven’t been to a proper patch since I moved in with my aunt.” 

“And I bet it’s much better than anything you’ve got planned with the others,” Bertie said. 

“Hm, I dunno. Roger and I are having a horror movie marathon this Friday, so it’s pretty close,” Etta said. 

“What? Pumpkin patch doesn’t beat The Conjuring?” 

“It’s a haunted doll, Bertie. And it possesses people. Name one thing that’s better than that.” 

“Pigeons in places that make sense.” 

“Okay you’ve got a point. But horror movies are generally much more fun, so I win.” 

“So a horror movie date, huh?” Bertie said. “I wouldn’t be able to stand the fear just to get close to someone, but-“ 

“Oh, we don’t watch them for that,” Etta said. “We watch them cause they’re fun!” 

“Fun? Etta, horror movies are _terrifying!_ ” 

“That’s the point!” 

“Oh my gosh. Why? Why would you do that to yourself?” 

“Because it’s Halloween!” 

“It’s October 18th.” 

“Exactly.” 


	11. Chapter 11

Roger didn’t think that it should be this hard to find a quiet place to study in university. It was university: studying was all they were meant to do. 

He’d ruled out his apartment within the first week of school: his neighbours were way too loud and distracting, and his roommate Lemaire wasn’t exactly good at catching onto cues about when Roger needed to be left alone to work. In fact, Roger would go so far as to say that he was complete shit at it. Public libraries were way too loud and he’d had to deal with way too many small children coming up and asking him what he was reading. 

This left the library on campus as his main study spot. Now presumably a university library would be a really useful study space for students. It would be quiet and have resources to help out if need be. 

Wrong. 

See the best thing that the library had been able to do as far as Roger could tell was have a couple of quiet study floors. Which would be great if they were actually quiet. So far this semester he’d had to deal with three couples fighting, one group project, sixteen phone notifications, two forgotten sets of headphones, and one girl who was very determined to get through her large bag of nuts. 

Keeping a tally in the back of his notebook might be the only way that Roger managed to remain sane throughout it all. 

Currently he was trying to figure out whether or not a law had been passed in 1673 New France while also dealing with the endless pencil tapping of the student at the desk behind him. Just when Roger thought that he was about to snap and turn around to yell at the kid, his phone lit up with a text from Bertie. 

**How goes the studying?**

_I’m about to commit a murder._

**THAT SOUNDS LIKE A TERRIBLE IDEA**

**ROGER**

**ROGER**

**PLEASE DON’T MURDER SOMEONE**

**WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO BAIL YOU OUT ON MURDER CHARGES**

_How about just breaking their pencil then?_

**How about a break?**

_I can’t take a break, I’ve got a midterm tomorrow. That I’m probably going to fail because I can’t focus long enough to figure out what my textbook says._

**Come by the shop after your classes are over. I think I’ve got an idea.**

_Is it murder?_

**NO**

* * *

Roger showed up at Bertie’s flower shop around four o’clock that afternoon. Bertie was helping a customer when he came in, but he gave Roger a wide smile anyways. Roger resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Bertie was always so happy to see him, it was ridiculous. Heck, Bertie’s typical happiness levels were ridiculous. 

It was nice though, having someone around that was so endlessly cheerful. He wasn’t about to lie and pretend like he was anything but a grouch, and Etta wasn’t exactly the happiest person ever either, what with the depression. It was good to be around someone who smiled just because “the sky is a really pretty shade today, don’t you think?” 

Bertie seemed even happier here in his shop. Roger hadn’t really been by that often - he didn’t really understand the point of buying something that you could just go to the park and pick, if he was being honest, especially not if it was going to die in two weeks anyways - but it was nice to watch Bertie in his element, explaining the differences between two flowers to a customer. His entire face lit up as he talked, and it was like someone had managed to fit part of the sun inside a living being. 

Bertie came over once the customer had left with their purchase. “So you managed not to murder them then.” 

“Actually I’m on the run, I need your help creating a new identity,” Roger said. 

Bertie’s eyes widened in terror. “What?!” 

“Sarcasm.” 

He hit Roger’s arm. “Don’t do that! I thought you had actually murdered someone!” 

“Glad to see you have so much faith in me. What’s this idea then?” 

Bertie smiled, his eyes dancing. “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.” 

He lead Roger to the back of the shop to a small closet. It had previously held cleaning supplies, but most of them had been moved out of the way to make room for a chair and a couple of piles of plastic pots with a board lying across them. 

“I thought that you could study here,” Bertie said. He was bouncing against the doorframe lightly with his shoulder and twisting the ends of his sleeves in excitement. The plaid fabric was fraying slightly between his fingers. “It’s usually pretty quiet during the day, and it’ll be pretty much dead for the rest of the night: Mondays, right?” 

Roger stared at him. “Are you serious?” 

Bertie’s entire body sagged in disappointment. “Do you not like it?” 

“No, it’s… it’s great. Just… You did this? For me?” 

“Of course. You’re my friend.” 

“Bertie…” 

“Shhh!” Bertie shoved him into the closet. “Just go study! You can thank me later by absolutely kicking ass on your midterm!” 

“Alright, but I’d just like you to know that I find it very insulting that you’re pushing me back into the closet,” Roger said. 

Bertie just rolled his eyes and walked back out towards the front. 

* * *

Roger walked into Bertie’s shop later that week, trying not to grin. Bertie, who had previously been sorting through a pot of purple flowers and picking out the dead ones, almost tackled him in his excitement. 

“Well? Well? How’d you do?” he asked, tugging on the sleeve of Roger’s jacket enthusiastically. 

Roger pulled the midterm out of his bag and showed it to him proudly. “Ninety-six percent.” 

“Ninety-six percent!” Bertie yelled. “That’s incredible! Can I hug you? Cause I really want to hug you right now.” 

Roger hesitated before nodding. Bertie nearly lifted him off the ground with his hug. “That’s incredible! How’d you manage to do that, that’s… Wow!” 

Roger laughed slightly. “It wasn’t that hard. I mean once I got a quiet place to study, it was easy to figure out the stuff I didn’t understand.” 

“But a ninety-six! On a university exam!” 

“It’s not that big a deal,” Roger said, but on the inside he was secretly thrilled that Bertie was so happy. It was nice to see someone else act out how crazy excited he felt about the mark. 

“Not a big deal! It’s amazing! You little nerd.” 

“It was honestly all thanks to you. Do you… Would you mind if I came back and studied here sometimes? It’s a lot better than trying to get work done at the library.” 

“Yeah, of course you can! I don’t know how you guys manage to do it though.” 

“Do what?” Roger asked. 

“University. I would probably end up failing out my first year. Or do something really stupid like sleep with my TA,” Bertie said. 

“I don’t think that counts as something stupid, I think that counts as academic misconduct.” 

“Not if you don’t know it’s your TA.” 

“Okay, then you’re doing something stupid because how the fuck would you not know who your TA was?” Roger said. 

“I told you: really stupid.” 

Roger rolled his eyes. “You’re not stupid though.” 

“You don’t know that,” Bertie said. 

“Actually I do. I know stupid when I see it, and you’re not it. You might make stupid mistakes sometimes, but you’re not a stupid person overall.” 

Bertie laughed once. “Yeah. Sure.” 

“Bertie.” 

He smiled at him. “It’s fine.” 

“No, it’s not. Why do you think you’re stupid?” Roger said. 

“Well I’m not in school like the rest of you. And sure, I’m working but… I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I’m not smart enough for it.” 

“Are you kidding me? You are so smart. You’re so much smarter than like, half the kids in my lectures. And they’re all trying to be grad students. Do you know how smart you need to be to be a grad student? And you just blow them all out of the water.”

“That’s kind of you to say, but-“ 

“I’m not just saying it. I mean it. You’re smart, Bertie. Really, really smart.” 

“I keep trying to tell you, you don’t know that,” Bertie said. 

“I do though.” Roger sighed and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Bertie was watching him with such a sad kicked puppy look, Roger wanted to go out and fight whoever said something to make him feel this way. 

“I don’t know much about flowers. Nothing, really. But I do know that you need to know a lot about biology to care for them. And you’re so knowledgeable. You know more about plants than possibly anyone I know. It takes a lot of brains to do that. It also takes a lot of brains to run a business. Especially when you’re doing it all on your own. So you don’t know how to write a paper. So you would probably fail a university exam. That doesn’t make you stupid. You’re plenty smart, even if you only look at one area of your life. And you’re so much more than that.” 

Bertie didn’t react for such a long time that Roger began worrying that he had said something wrong. But then- 

“Thanks.” Bertie smiled slowly, a small smile that, while not as bright as his usual one, still managed to pull all of Roger’s attention towards it. “That really means a lot.” 

Roger cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, well… You shouldn’t think that you’re stupid. Because you’re not. And anyone who thinks otherwise can go fuck themselves.” 

Bertie laughed slightly. “Okay.” 

“I’ll see you later? I have to get back to campus for my afternoon class, but I feel like I should buy you dinner as thanks or something.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be nice.” 

“Okay, but I’m a student so don’t expect much.” 

Bertie laughed. “I never do.” 

“You should,” Roger said as he opened the door to the shop. “You deserve much.” 

The door closed behind him before Bertie had a chance to argue.


	12. Chapter 12

There were very few things that made Etta go weak in the knees. But if she had to make a list, her boyfriend’s lips on her neck and his nails digging into her bare thighs would probably top it. 

She hadn’t lied when she had told Nora that they were waiting to have sex. But there was a lot of stuff that you could do with your mouth and hands that wasn’t sex but still felt amazing. And Roger’s hands up her skirt was definitely one of them. As was kissing. Kissing was definitely a good one. 

Which was why she felt her heart sink slightly when her phone went off with a loud buzzing noise and Roger pulled away from her. His hair was all messed up from Etta running her hands through it: it was so soft and fluffy, she couldn’t help it. 

“It’s probably nothing important,” she mumbled, leaning in again. 

“It’s worth at least checking,” he said. 

Etta huffed and grabbed her phone from the bedside table, ready to hang up on whoever was calling. Unless it was her aunt, they had no business calling while she was making out with her boyfriend. 

It was Bertie. She was about to hang up when she noticed the text notification at the top of her screen. He had probably been trying to reach her for a while now. 

“What do you want?” she said. Roger raised his eyebrows at her and she swatted his shoulder lightly, resisting the urge to hang up on Bertie and continue kissing his brains out. 

“What do I want?” Bertie said. “I want to know where you are. You said you’d help me pick out pumpkins.” 

“Shit, was that today? I thought we were doing that tomorrow!” Etta said, scrambling off of Roger. 

“No, I’m pretty sure we decided on today. Where are you?” 

“I’m over at Roger’s. I’ll be there soon, okay?” 

“Alright, but hurry up. I’ve already been waiting for ages.” 

Etta hung up. “I gotta go,” she said to Roger. 

“What’s wrong?” he said, sitting up on his elbows. His arms looked good when he did that and Etta silently cursed Bertie for choosing today to pick out the pumpkins.

“I forgot I told Bertie that I’d help him pick out pumpkins for the shop,” she said, grabbing her tights from where Roger had tossed them on the floor. 

“Let me guess. He’s been waiting for you for the past half hour.” 

“Yep.” 

“How did you manage to forget that?” 

“I didn't forget, exactly. I just thought it was tomorrow.” 

“So you forgot the date,” Roger said. 

“If you wanna get picky about it,” Etta said, pulling on her sweater. Roger was smirking slightly. “What?” 

“You have a hickey,” he said, with something almost like pride. 

Etta clapped a hand to her neck. “What? Shit!”

His smirk widened so she smacked his shoulder again. “I can’t hang out with Bertie with a hickey on my neck! Do you have a scarf or something I can cover it with?” 

“Yeah, probably.” Roger pulled on his shirt and lead her out to the hall closet. He rummaged around in one of the boxes before producing a gray scarf that he wrapped around her neck. 

Etta buried her face in the soft wool. It smelled like oak. She smiled. “It smells like you,” she said. 

“Well it is my scarf,” Roger said. 

Etta rolled her eyes and put on her boots. When she looked up, Roger was watching her affectionately. 

“What?” she asked. 

“Nothing,” he said. “I just like it when you wear my clothes. They look good on you.” 

Etta smiled and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Pick out some good ones. We don’t want Bertie to have squashed pumpkins outside his shop all week.”

Bertie was standing by the fence surrounding the pumpkin patch when Etta ran down the dirt road to meet him. It had taken her three buses and half an hour to get out there, and Bertie looked less than impressed. 

“I am _so_ sorry Bertie, I completely forgot!” Etta said as she reached him. 

Bertie’s face softened slightly. “It’s fine. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” 

“I’ll make it up to you. Let me buy the pumpkins.” 

“Alright, you’re forgiven,” he said, finally smiling. 

Etta grinned. “Good. I don’t like having you mad at me.” 

Bertie tugged lightly on the end of her scarf. “I see you bundled up today. Well, mostly. I don’t understand how you’re wearing a dress in fall.” 

Etta smiled innocently, deciding not to tell him the real reason she was wearing a scarf. “Wool tights, Bertie. They’re a blessing. Plus, a dress means that you don’t have to tuck. I don’t look as farmery as you do though,” she said, lightly twanging one of his suspenders. 

Bertie ducked his head, a light blush creeping across his cheeks. “They’re comfortable. I guess this means you won’t be hiding behind me all day.”

“We’ll see. You’re a nice windbreaker.” 

Bertie smiled and rolled his eyes. The two of them headed down the path to where it branched off into multiple rows of pumpkins. 

“So how’d your date with my boyfriend go?” Etta teased Bertie as he looked for a couple of pumpkins that he liked. 

Bertie jumped slightly. “What? What date?” he said, tugging nervously on the ends of his sleeves. 

Etta laughed. “It was just a joke, relax. You guys hung out last week, right?” 

“Oh. Yeah. It was… fun. He’s a good guy.” 

“Sure, when he’s not being an asshole.” 

“You two really do have the strangest relationship…” Bertie murmured. 

“I like it,” Etta said. “It makes everything more interesting. And it’s not as if we never agree on everything.” 

“That’s true. Your arguments do tend to be over pretty trivial things.” 

“He thinks dark chocolate tastes good. I mean come on, would you let him say that?” 

“No, but I’m also not the one dating him.” 

“Oh, how about this one?” Etta said, pointing to a large pumpkin that was almost a perfect circle. 

“Sure,” Bertie said. “Think you can carry it?” 

Etta put her hands on her hips. “I may be short, but I’m not weak!” 

She regretted her words later when she was carrying the pumpkin back down the road towards the bus stop. It had taken them ten minutes before they had found another pumpkin that didn’t have too many dents in it, and Etta’s arms were tired before they had even reached the checkout. It was the first time she had been glad to spend money because it gave her an excuse to put the pumpkin down. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take it?” Bertie asked for the third time. 

“I’m sure!” Etta said, stumbling quickly towards the bus stop and setting it down next to the bench. “Ah! Finally!” 

She collapsed onto the bench while Bertie laughed and walked over. He made carrying a heavy vegetable look easy. “Are you going let me sit down too?” he asked. 

“Nope,” Etta said, stretching her arms above her head until her shoulders cracked. “I get to lie down until the bus gets here. I am willing to work out a compromise though.” 

“Compromise?” Bertie said. 

“Mmhm.” She sat up. “Sit down.” 

Bertie sat down hesitantly and Etta lay back, resting her head in his lap. She felt his legs tense up for a second before relaxing. 

“Is this okay?” she asked. 

“Yes. Yes, it’s… It’s fine,” Bertie said. He was still for a second before his hand slowly found his way into her hair. 

“Mm.” Etta closed her eyes. “It’s so nice out here. I wish I lived out in the country.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Well, maybe not on a farm. But it would be nice to move out of the city one day and just go somewhere a little more quiet.” 

“Be at one with nature?” Bertie said. 

“Yeah. Exactly. Where would you live if you could live anywhere in the world?” Etta asked. 

There was a long silence as Bertie considered his answer, his fingers absentmindedly twisting one of Etta’s curls. “I guess I would want to live somewhere near the ocean. It would be nice to have a small flower shop somewhere where you could smell the saltwater.” 

“Hm, that would be nice. The ocean’s so pretty. My mom used to take me there every summer.” 

“I… Never mind.” 

Etta opened her eyes. “What is it?” 

Bertie looked uncomfortable. “It’s not important.” 

“Are you sure? You look like you have something to say.” 

“I just… What happened to your mom? Did she…” 

“Die? No. At least, I don’t think so. I hope not.” 

“What do you mean?” Bertie asked. 

“She disappeared,” Etta said. “When I was nine. She went off to work and never came home. And I don’t know if she was kidnapped, or ran away, or… I don’t know.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” She’d had time to deal with it. Not get over it. Etta didn’t think she’d ever be over it. She didn’t think there was a way to get over your mother suddenly vanishing when you’re a child. But it had been over a decade now. She’d spent more time living with her aunt than she had with her mother. Well, as much “living with” as you could do with someone who was away as often as her aunt was. 

“Do you still miss her?” Bertie said. 

“Sometimes. On her birthday and on mine. And the day she disappeared, of course. It gets easier with time, you know,” she said. Judging by the tight look on Bertie’s face, he was thinking about his parents. It was probably a lot harder for him, since it hadn’t been that long. And he was even more alone than Etta was, what with his uncle leaving as soon as he could. As many shortcomings as Etta’s aunt had in terms of actually being around, she never failed to provide for her niece. And she had always been supportive, even if she didn’t quite understand. 

“I know,” Bertie said. “Or at least I hope so.” 

Etta reached up and took his hand. “Don’t worry, it will. And you’ll always have me. We’ll be a new family.” 

“Will I?” Bertie said quietly. 

“Of course,” Etta said. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, but… You’re special. I want to keep you around. If you’ll let me.” 

“Of course I will.” 

There was the screech of brakes as the bus pulled to a stop in front of them. Etta got up. “Come on, Bertrand. Let’s see if we can get these home without smashing them to bits.” 

* * *

It had been ages since Kate had last been to a haunted house. They weren’t any fun to go to on your own, but Laura and Bertie got scared too easily and clung to her the entire time, while Yvette spent the entire time pointing out how the scares were done. Yes, she knew that it was just corn syrup, chocolate syrup, and paper towels. No, she didn’t care because it was fun to imagine that it was real. 

Kate loved Yvette, but Halloween made her want to dump the other girl in a cauldron. 

But now, at long last, she had found companions that would actually be good company in a haunted house. Or… she had found one? 

“Where’s Etta?” she asked as Roger approached her. 

“She went over to Bertie’s for the night,” he said. “Apparently he’s letting her show him a horror movie. She texted me about it in all caps.” 

Kate chuckled. “Good luck to her with that. Bertie’s a nightmare when he gets scared. I think I still have the marks from when we went to the haunted house at the fair in grade ten. Speaking of marks… What the hell are you supposed to be?” 

Roger sighed. He was dressed up in his usual clothes, but his shirt was covered in blood near his stomach. “It was Etta’s idea. She wanted me to look as dead on the outside as I am on the inside, so I’m a stabbing victim.” 

Kate laughed. “I like it. Very clever.” 

“Right? Yours is pretty good too.” 

Kate had dressed up as a fairy, complete with glitter on her cheeks. And what felt like everywhere else, because her dress was definitely shedding some of it. “Thanks. Laura wanted us all to go as something glittery because she bought too much glitter for one of her art projects.” 

Roger made a face. “How much did she think she needed if this is just a third of the leftovers?” 

“Oh no, this is half. She _wanted_ us all to be glittery. Yvette may love Laura a lot, but not enough to wear glitter for her.” 

“But still…” 

“I know. I’ll be washing glitter off myself until New Year’s when she’ll make me wear it again,” Kate said. 

“At least it’ll be easy to find you in there,” Roger said. 

Kate laughed. “You ready to go?” 

“Sure.” 

They came back out of the house fifteen minutes later. “Well they definitely got better in the last couple of years,” Kate said. 

“Yeah, some of that makeup actually looked real.” Roger shuddered. 

“Not as real as yours does.” Kate poked his stomach lightly and Roger twisted away from her. 

“Don’t, it feels gross enough already.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, it’s still damp. It was supposed to dry in a couple of hours but it’s been a day already. It’s like wearing clothes that you got rained on in, so it’s all sticky and uncomfortable. But only in one spot,” Roger said. 

Kate made a face. “Why are you still wearing it then?” 

“Because Etta wanted me to,” he said simply. 

Kate smirked. “Of course.” 

He scowled. “Don’t make that face.” 

“What face?” she said innocently. “This is just how I look.” 

Roger rolled his eyes and started walking away from her. “Well you’d better start working on your appearance if you want me to buy you any discount candy.” 

“What kind of candy?” 

“I don’t know, whatever’s left.” 

“It had better be Swedish Berries.” 

“What part of “whatever’s left” wasn’t clear?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is the last completed chapter I have at the moment, so it'll be a bit more of a wait before the next chapter. That one's about halfway done though, so it should be up by the end of the week at the latest! 
> 
> CW for emetophobia this chapter!!

Bertie was in hell. 

He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve it, but he was certain that this was hell. 

It had all started earlier that day when Etta had texted him asking for his help. 

_what do you need help with?_

**i have a date tonight but i look like a trashcan that someone set on fire**

**pleeeaaaassssseeeeee come save me**

_what am i supposed to do?_

**tell me how cute i look**

**boost my confidence**

**but also tell me if i look like i’m wearing a trashbag**

_fine i’ll be over in a bit_

When Etta answered the door, Bertie had no idea what she was talking about. She looked like someone fresh out of a city modelling shoot: jeans, gray long sleeved shirt, black leather vest, and a ponytail. It was all he could do not to stare at her and drool. 

“I look awful, don’t I?” she said, taking his silence as a negative reaction. “Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have borrowed the vest from Kate! It looked so good on her, but I can’t pull it off.” 

Etta turned and walked off into her apartment, pulling the vest off as she went. Bertie followed after her, somehow remembering to close the front door behind him even though his entire brain was chanting _CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!!!!!!_

“How’d the rest of the outfit look though? Salvageable, or should I just start over from scratch? I should just start over, right Bertrand? Bertrand?” Etta stepped out of her bedroom, looking concerned. “Are you okay? You look kind of… rattled.” 

Bertie snapped out of it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“Good.” Etta took his hand and lead him over to her bed. He took a seat, still staring at her, stunned. She looked just as cute as she had when she answered the door and it almost hurt that she was so beautiful and he couldn’t tell her. 

“Do you think I’m going too casual? Like, should I go for something a little bit dressier?” Etta asked, pulling her hair out of her ponytail. Bertie watched it fall around her shoulders, lightly grazing the skin of her collarbone. 

“Well uh, that depends on what the date is,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “He just said that it was a surprise.” 

“Hm.” Bertie pulled out his phone and texted Roger. 

_soooo big date tonight?_

**_What?_ **

_please just tell me where you’re taking etta_

_i promise i won’t tell her_

**_Oh no, I’m not trusting you with anymore secrets. Not after last time._ **

_that was an accident!_

**_Well then consider this me saving you from another one._ **

_pllllleeeeeeaaaaasssssssseeeeeee?????_

_etta’s trying to figure out what to wear and i can’t help her if i have no idea what she should be wearing_

**_Normal clothes?_ **

_thanks!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 _

“Roger said to just wear normal clothes,” Bertie said. 

“Wow, that’s super helpful,” Etta said dryly. 

“Why not just wear what you’re wearing now?” 

“Because I look absolutely terrible in it.” 

“No, you look nice. You look… really nice.” 

“Bertrand.” Etta gave him an annoyed look. “I thought you promised to tell me when I looked like a trash heap.” 

“I also promised to boost your confidence,” Bertie said. 

“Okay but can’t you do that while not lying to me about how terrible my outfit is?” 

“Your outfit isn’t terrible.” 

Etta rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever you say. I’m still changing.” 

She turned her back to him and pulled her shirt off. Bertie looked away quickly, his heart racing. 

“How’s this? Better?” 

Bertie turned back. Etta had changed into a pink and gray hoodie and still looked just as excruciatingly cute as she had before, albeit somewhat more Etta-like now. 

“You look great,” he said. 

Etta huffed. “I don’t want to look _great_ , I want to look amazing.” 

“Alright, you look amazing then.” 

“Bertrand. Honesty, remember?” 

“I am being honest,” he said. “You look really pretty.” 

“First of all, that’s a lie. And second of all, I can look pretty any day. I want to look beautiful. I want him to think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.” 

“Well he’d be stupid not to.” 

“Thanks, but-“ 

“No buts.” 

Etta rolled her eyes. “I’m still going to change again.” 

Bertie closed his eyes. “At least now I know that means that you’re about to take your shirt off.” 

“What? You don’t like the free show?” 

Bertie’s neck heated up. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might fly right out of his chest. “No.” 

“Rude. I worked hard for these. Okay, you can open your eyes again.” 

Bertie opened his eyes. Etta had changed into a white sweater and was wrapping a red plaid scarf around her neck. She looked at him hopefully. “Better?” she asked. 

“Gorgeous,” Bertie said. He was stunned that every time he opened his eyes, she looked just as beautiful, if not more so, than she had before. It was like someone had stolen a piece of heaven and put it in a person. 

“Are you sure?” Etta said, glancing down at her outfit nervously. 

“Definitely. You look amazing.” 

She beamed. “Thanks! Hopefully Roger thinks so as well.” 

“Doesn’t he tell you all the time how pretty you are?” Bertie asked. If he were her boyfriend, he’d never stop saying it. Heck, he could barely stop it now. 

“Sure, but it’s usually less of a “wow, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen” and more of a “you look nice.”” Etta said that last part with an awkward throat clear and bad Australian accent. 

Bertie laughed. “Well maybe tonight you’ll at least get a pretty.” 

“Gotta keep aiming for the beautiful,” Etta said, pulling on her jean jacket. 

Later that night, Bertie got a text from Etta. 

**He took me to a shelter so that we could help look after the cats!!!!!!!! And then we got to take one of the dogs out for a walk!!!!!!!! I love him so much, I’m gonna marry this man**

Bertie felt his heart break even as he smiled reading the text. 

* * *

**Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!**

_What? What? What? What? What? What?_

**my aunt waxed the floors before she left for her trip and they’re all shiny!! and slippery!!**

**wanna come over and do sock slides?**

_etta i have a huge paper due this week_

_OF COURSE i want to come over and do sock slides_

Etta was practically bouncing when she opened the door for Kate. There was soft music coming from elsewhere in the apartment. “This is going to be so much fun! I want to see if I can make it all the way across the apartment!” 

“You’re starting way too ambitious,” Kate said. “The longest sock slide ever done was only two meters. That’s maybe the length of your hallway.”

“I’m allowed a dream,” Etta said. 

“So where are we sliding?” she asked, taking her shoes off. 

“I thought we could use the living room. It’s big enough to slide in, with less risk of injury.” 

“Sounds good.” 

Kate followed Etta to the living room, where she saw the source of the music: Etta’s phone lay on the sofa, playing what sounded like a Weird Al song. 

“Weird Al? Really?” she said. 

“What? I like parodies,” Etta said. “Just for that, I get an extra slide.” 

“Technically you’ve already had extra slides,” Kate pointed out. 

“Ohhh, did I forget to tell you? Sorry!” Etta held up two rolls of electrical tape, one yellow and one pink. “I thought we could turn this into a little competition.” 

Kate smirked. “Sure, if you’re prepared to lose.” 

“Please. I’ve been sliding on this floor since I was nine. I’m going to wipe it with you.” 

“Wow. That sounded bad.” 

Etta cringed. “I know. It sounded way better in my head.” 

Despite Etta’s best efforts, she wasn’t quite able to surpass Kate, who prided herself on having never lost a sock sliding competition to Bollard growing up. She had never lost any competition to Bollard, not that her cousin would ever admit to that. 

“I’m totally going to pass you with this one,” Etta said, rocking lightly on her feet. 

“You keep telling yourself that,” Kate said. “I’m sure it’ll come true one day.” 

Etta wrinkled her nose at her before running into a slide. Unfortunately, she lost her balance, and, as Kate went to help her, fell on top of her. Kate landed with a groan as her tailbone connected squarely with the ground, followed by her head. 

“Fuck…” 

“Sorry!” Etta lifted herself up to stare at Kate in horror. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” 

“I’ll live. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah. Thanks. If you hadn’t caught me, I’d probably have hit my head on the table…” 

“You didn’t hit it on the ground, did you?” 

“Did I hit it? How about you?” Etta checked Kate’s head hurriedly, her face full of concern. 

“Ow, ow, I’m fine,” Kate said, wincing as Etta pressed down on the back of her head. 

“You’re definitely not fine. Come on, let’s get some ice on that.” 

Etta helped her off the floor and lead Kate to the kitchen. While Kate pressed a dishtowel -wrapped bag of ice against the bump on the back of her neck, Etta Googled how to check for a concussion. 

“Okay, this says that you’ll have a headache. Of course you’ll have a headache, you just hit your head! How is this supposed to be helpful?” Etta scowled at her phone. “How about nausea? Dizziness?” 

“A little nausea. Bit shaky, but I don’t know about dizzy,” Kate said. 

“Can you see alright?” 

“I think so?” 

“How about the light and sound? Is it too much?” 

“It’s a little bright. I don’t know about sound though. You raise your voice when you get worried, so it might just be that.” 

Etta frowned. “Sorry.” 

“No, it’s not your fault,” Kate said. “I just… Ugh.” 

Etta looked up, panicked. “What is it? What’s wrong?” 

“Nausea just got a lot worse.” 

“Okay, I’m taking you to the hospital.” 

“No, it’s fine. I just… I just…” 

“You just what?” Etta said. 

Kate groaned and sunk slowly to the floor. “I don’t know.” 

“Okay, that seems like concussed behaviour. Let’s go.” 

Etta helped Kate out to the bus stop, despite Kate’s continuous protests. Before long, they were on a bus to the hospital, Kate with her head resting on Etta’s shoulder while the other girl pressed the icepack against her bump. Etta was soft and warm, contrasting the cold hardness of the icepack, and Kate found herself moving closer to her as they went along. 

Etta filled out the information form for Kate in the emergency room, since her vision was getting slightly foggy and trying to focus on the words on the page made her stumble over to a trash can to throw up. After the form was filled out, she was sent off to get blood work done. Etta came with her, both for moral and sometimes physical support, as Kate was still pretty wobbly. 

The doctor came back with her results after a little while. “It looks like everything checks out, so you’re free to go so long as you have someone who can check on you every four hours of sleep for the first two nights.” 

“Do you want to stay at my place for the night?” Etta asked. 

Kate shook her head only to regret it a second later as pain burst out behind her eyes and she cringed. “Ugh. No, I should be fine at home. I can ask Laura or Yvette to check on me.” 

“What should they be looking for?” Etta asked the doctor. 

“That she’s able to be woken up is the most important thing,” the doctor said, and a look of absolute terror flashed across Etta’s face. She clutched Kate’s hand tightly. “But also that she can answer questions coherently and isn’t suffering from any memory loss or confusion. If she is, you’ll want to bring her back in.” 

Etta helped Kate back home and relayed the doctor’s message on to the other two. Laura immediately began fussing over Kate, while Yvette went to get her bed more comfortable so that she could begin resting right away. 

“Are you sure that you don’t want me to stay with you?” Etta asked, helping Kate out of her jacket. “I could sleep on your floor so that I’d be right there if you needed me and then Laura and Yvette won’t need to be disturbed.” 

“Etta, you’re being ridiculous. I’ll be fine. I’m in good hands,” Kate said. 

“Besides, I think I’d still want to wake up to check on her anyways. I’d be too worried not to,” Laura said, placing her hand against Kate’s forehead.  

“Laura, I have a concussion, not a fever. Please don’t touch my head.” 

“Right. Sorry. Do you want tea or something? Or is cold stuff better? Oh, an ice pack!” Laura went running off to the kitchen and Etta laughed softly. 

“She’s even worse than I am,” she said. 

“Just wait until you see her when Yvette gets sick,” Kate said. 

“She’s absolutely insufferable,” Yvette said, coming out of Kate’s room. “I’ve got your bed made up all comfy, so it’s time for you to go to sleep. Need help getting there?” 

“I’m-“ 

“She does,” Etta interrupted. “She keeps getting woozy and almost falling over. Don’t let her tell you otherwise, or she’ll end up with another concussion.” 

“Alright then.” Yvette put Kate’s arm around her shoulder and helped her down the hallway to her bedroom. Etta followed after them, looking slightly lost now that she wasn’t half-carrying Kate. 

“It really is fine if you want to go home,” Kate told her. “You’ve already done so much for me today.” 

“It doesn’t feel like it. I mean I’m the one who gave you the concussion in the first place,” Etta said. 

“It’s not like you did it on purpose.” 

Etta still looked unsure so Yvette piped up. “It’s also not like you can do anything more now. Laura will look after her just fine and all she really needs is rest. Having an extra person around would just prevent that.” 

“Right,” Etta said. “I’ll head out and leave you to sleep then.” 

She hesitated before kissing Kate gently on the forehead. “Feel better,” she said before leaving. 

Yvette waited until the front door closed before turning to Kate with raised eyebrows. “She’s giving you goodbye kisses now?” 

“It’s because she feels bad. She’s got a boyfriend. And even if she didn’t, I wouldn’t go after her,” Kate said. She could never do that to Bertie. 

“Why not? She’s cute and smart. Exactly your type.” 

“I’m just not interested in her. And it doesn’t matter anyways, because she _has a boyfriend._ ” 

“For now.” 

“That sounds ominous.” 

“I’m just saying,” Yvette said, sitting down at the end of Kate’s bed. “Relationships don’t last forever.” 

“That doesn’t matter right now though,” Kate said. 

“There’s nothing wrong with liking someone who’s in a relationship.” 

“I know that. I’m not saying there is. I just don’t like her, okay?” 

“Are you sure she doesn’t like you?” 

“Oh my god…” Kate groaned and sunk back into her pillows. “Do we have to do this now? I have a concussion and I want to die.” 

“I’m just saying…” 

Luckily Laura burst into the room just then, carrying a tray filled with an icepack, a bowl of soup, a plate of crackers, and a cup of tea. 

“I made you some soup as well,” she said. “Just in case you wanted something to eat. I don’t know, it might help, it might not. I don’t know.” 

“It’s great Laura, thank you,” Kate said. 

Laura beamed widely at her before grabbing Yvette’s wrist and dragging her out of the room. “Come on, Kate needs her rest.” 

Kate sipped her soup in silence, trying not to think too much about what Yvette had said. There was no truth in it. None at all. And it was all completely irrelevant anyways. Etta was with Roger, and even if she wasn’t, Kate could never date someone that Bertie was in love with. 

Not that it mattered anyways, because Kate didn’t want to date Etta. They were just friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, new chapter! I don't know anything about flowers so the arrangements this chapter probably look terrible, I just went with what flowers would look good together since apparently Google doesn't have any information on how to make an arrangement. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Roger had been in the back of the shop for almost three hours now. Bertie didn’t mind that he had been back there so long except for the fact that he was pretty sure that he hadn’t taken a break in all of that time. Roger wasn’t exactly a “self care” kind of person. 

Bertie went back to the closet and knocked lightly on the doorframe. “Hey…” he said gently. “How’s it going?” 

Roger looked up and pulled out his earphones. “Oh. Hey. It’s, uh… It’s going okay. Sorry, do you need me to leave?” 

“No no, you’re fine!” Bertie said quickly. “I just wanted to come and check on you since I hadn’t seen you for a few hours. Shouldn’t you take a break? Stretch? Have a glass of water or something?” 

“I’ve got my water bottle in here with me,” Roger said, before turning his attention back to his laptop. 

“Okay, well then how about a coffee? Or a walk? Or a nap?” 

Roger looked back up at him. “Bertie. I have a paper that’s worth 30% of my final grade due tomorrow at midnight. I need to get this done.” 

“Counterpoint: can you really do your best work when you haven’t looked away from your screen in three hours? Isn’t your brain just sludge by this point?” 

“Bertie…” 

“Roger… Please…” He put on his best puppy dog eyes and Roger sighed. 

“Alright. Fine. One quick break, but that’s it.” 

Bertie beamed and grabbed his hand. “Great! And I have the perfect idea of what you can do!” 

“I don’t appreciate being dragged away from schoolwork only to do unpaid work for you,” Roger said a few minutes later as he swept leaves off the floor. 

“Don’t think of it as unpaid labour!” Bertie said, carefully trimming the ends of a bundle of mallow flowers. “Think of it as… volunteer work!” 

“No. To be a volunteer, you have to actually _volunteer._ Why don’t you have anyone helping you out with this stuff?” 

Bertie shrugged. “I got the flower shop from my parents. It was only ever them who worked in it. It would feel wrong to hire someone else.” 

“But not to force your friend to work on their “break?”” 

Bertie grinned. “Roger.” 

He looked up from sweeping, annoyed. “What?” 

“You just called us friends.” 

Roger’s cheeks flushed and Bertie recognized the same flustered look from the first photo Etta sent him. “Yeah, well… So what?” 

“So, I like it when you admit that you like me. It’s sweet.” Roger’s blush deepened and Bertie smirked. “And cute.” 

“Shut up,” he said, immediately turning back to the sweeping. 

Bertie laughed. “You know I’m not going to do that. It’s your break. I’m meant to help you loosen up and stop being so tense.” 

“Fine. Talk about something interesting at least then.” 

“Okay, well, the woman I’m making this arrangement for wanted me to make it super romantic for her and her husband’s anniversary. So I’m filling it with all love flowers. It’s going to be so romantic, Valentine’s Day will think it’s disgusting.” 

“Ugh, sounds awful.” Roger glanced up at him, looking guilty. “Sorry. Gut reaction.” 

Bertie laughed. “Not a fan of romantic gestures?” 

“Not really. I’m… I’m not really good at love and everything it comes with. Makes me kind of a sucky boyfriend.” 

Bertie leaned over the counter to watch him sweep. Roger wasn’t looking at him now, focusing intently on getting every bit of dirt off the floor. “I don’t think you’re a sucky boyfriend,” he said. “You make Etta happy, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?” 

“Not to some people.” 

“Screw some people,” Bertie said immediately, before frowning and watching Roger’s behaviour more closely. He was moving quickly, his movements small and hurried, all kept close to his body. Anxious movements. “Roger. Who’s some people?” 

“It’s not important.” 

“Are you sure? I’m here if you want to talk about it.” 

“It’s just an idiot, that’s all,” he said. 

“An idiot who made you feel like shit.” 

“Yeah. Exactly,” he said quietly. 

Bertie watched him for a few moments longer and was about to go back to cutting the flowers when Roger finally looked up at him. 

“Not everyone’s as understanding about stuff as Etta is. She’s… really quite amazing about it, honestly.” 

“What stuff?” Bertie asked. “Not being good at romantic stuff isn’t usually a deal breaker.”  

“It is if the romantic stuff you’re missing is straight up attraction,” he said. 

“You’re aro?” Bertie said, confused. He never would have guessed it by the way he and Etta acted together. 

Roger shook his head. “Arospec. Grayromantic, to be specific.” 

“Okay, so then what’s the problem? I don’t really understand, are you… are you not in love with Etta, or…? How would being grayromantic affect stuff?” 

Roger smiled slightly, just the smallest hint in the corner of his mouth. “That’s what I thought too.” He turned back to his sweeping. 

“I was kind of… seeing, this person. It wasn’t anything all that serious. Or at least I didn’t think so. They were pretty into me, but I wasn’t really sure how I felt. Everything was… complicated… enough on its own, without adding a romantic partner onto everything else. And they hadn’t come out yet, so I figured that it would be fine if we kept our distance. But they kept pushing, and I got more confused. I ended up telling them that I was arospec, and they didn’t exactly take it very well.” 

“How not well?” Bertie asked. 

“They told me I was being selfish.” 

“What? How the hell does that make any sense?!” 

Roger shrugged. “I couldn’t love them the right way.” 

“That’s bullshit. Not being attracted to someone is never selfish.” 

“Funny. That’s what Etta said too.” 

“Because it’s true. You weren’t at fault there. Not at all.” 

He shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m working on it.” 

“You know there’s nothing to be fixed, right? There’s nothing wrong with being arospec,” Bertie said. 

“Yeah. I know that. I just… I want her to be happy. So I’m working on being better about the cliche romantic stuff. I know she’s fine without it, I just… I want to do this for her.” 

Bertie frowned, unsure of what to say next. Roger seemed to pick up on this, because he walked over to the counter to look at the flowers. “So what are you putting in it, then?” 

“Hm? Oh. Uh, these are mallow flowers. They mean ‘consumed by love.’” 

“Huh. That’s kind of a sweet sentiment.” 

“That’s the idea,” Bertie said. He slide the arrangement over. “These are bellflowers. They mean unwavering love. Purple roses. Love at first sight. Anemone. Undying love.” 

“You’re pretty good at this, huh?” Roger said. There was the slightest hint of a smile on his face and Bertie felt his stomach flip. 

“Well it is my job. Wouldn’t make much money if I was bad at it.” 

“Hm.” Roger put the broom away. “I’d better get back to work. Thanks for… Well, thanks for making me take a break. And everything else.” 

“Of course.” Bertie watched him go back to the closet and tried to ignore the slightly hollow feeling that appeared in his chest as he left. 

* * *

Roger was back in the shop again the next day, but instead of heading to the closet after a quick greeting, he stayed out front to talk with Bertie as he watered the plants. He shifted awkwardly on his feet as they talked and seemed reluctant to look Bertie in the eye. After a couple of minutes of this, Bertie was fed up. 

“Okay, what’s going on?” he asked. 

“What do you mean?” Roger asked. 

“You’re acting all suspicious and shifty. It’s weird, I don’t like it.” 

Roger looked like he wanted to argue with Bertie, but after a few seconds deliberation, he sighed. “I was wondering if you could do one of those really sappy arrangements for Etta,” he said, looking uncomfortable. 

Bertie blinked in surprise. “You want me to do what now?” 

“I want you to make one of those really sappy and romantic arrangements for Etta. If that’s possible, of course!” he said quickly. “I understand if it’s weird making one for your friend!” 

_That isn’t why it would be weird, but sure, let’s go with that,_ Bertie thought. He was about to refuse but Roger looked so hopeful and his heart twisted in his chest. 

“Yeah, of course I can do it,” Bertie said. “Do you mind helping me pick out the flowers so that it’s got the right meaning behind it?” 

“Sure.” 

The two of them walked over to the counter and Bertie pulled out a pad of paper to jot down ideas. “So what exactly do you want this to be?” he asked. 

“I don’t know. Something I could give her on a date or something?” 

“Damn, that’s cute. Is there a crossroads demon I could sell my soul to to get a cute boy to bring me flowers for a date?” he muttered. 

Roger’s ears turned pink. “I’m trying the typical boyfriend stuff. She might still laugh at it.” 

Bertie gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re bringing her flowers for no reason other than that you love her. That’s fucking cute and she’s going to die. She texted me saying that she wanted to marry you because you brought her to an animal shelter on a date.” 

“That’s just Etta,” he said, getting even more flustered. 

“Exactly. Etta loves you and she’s going to love the fact that you’re bringing her flowers for your date.” 

“I guess,” he muttered. 

Bertie grinned. “Okay. So what do you want this to say?” 

“I don’t know, I love you? What are the options?” 

“Oh boy,” Bertie said and he began to write. “Balsam is option number one. It means ardent love.” 

“Ardent?” 

“Yeah. You know, like in Pride and Prejudice?” 

“Never seen it.” 

Bertie gasped loudly. “What?!” 

Roger shrugged. “Yeah, it seemed kind of weird, so I just-“ 

“We are watching that next movie night! I can’t believe you’ve never seen it. Actually,” he paused, considering. “Now that I think about it, the main characters are a lot like you and Etta.” 

“I doubt it.” 

“That’s definitely going in there.” Bertie circled it on his sheet. 

“Alright, what else?” 

“Forget-me-nots mean true love. Honeysuckle means devoted affection. Basically any tulip would have some love meaning. Lilacs can mean first emotion of love, that might be a good one for you.” 

Roger looked overwhelmed. “Yeah… Sure… Whatever you think would work?” 

Bertie laughed. “I’ll figure something out.” 

“Thanks, Bertie. I really appreciate it.” He gave him a small smile and Bertie’s heart leapt into his throat. 

“Of course. What else are friends for?” 

It wasn’t until the next night when he got a text from Roger thanking him and telling him that Etta loved the flowers that he finally realized what was up. 

He’d closed his eyes and begun dozing off, dreaming of a sweet boy who would bring him flowers just because and smile at him like he was the entire world. And then he’d jolted awake, faced with a very sudden, startling, and overwhelmingly inconvenient realization. 

In his fantasy it wasn’t just some random faceless boy. 

It was Roger. 

It was always Roger. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks


	15. Chapter 15

“I have a problem,” Bertie said to Kate, sinking down onto her floor, his back pressed against her bed. 

“Are you going to complain about Etta again?” she asked, flipping through her textbook to find the reading she was supposed to be doing. It was on poisonous plants and she didn’t understand the anatomy so she’d called Bertie over to help her out. Or at least that was what she’d been hoping they’d do. Although she was perfectly happy to help him out with his problem if he needed her. 

“No.” Bertie sounded nervous. “I actually… It’s about Roger.” 

Kate raised her eyebrows. “Really? What did he do?” 

“Be incredibly cute and sweet.” 

Kate spun around to stare at him. “You’re joking.” 

He stared at the floor, upset. “I really wish I was.” 

“You like Roger too? Like, you like both of them? Or are you over Etta?” 

“I think- I think I like them both? I don’t know. It’s… It’s confusing. Love is hard.” 

“You can say that again,” she muttered. Kate hadn’t even bothered trying to figure out her love life since her trip to the emergency room with Etta a week earlier. The heartache of an overly complicated situation wasn’t worth the stress of trying to sort out her emotions. 

“I mean it doesn’t matter what I feel,” Bertie said. “It’s not like I’d be able to date either one of them anytime soon.” 

“Of course it matters,” Kate said. “If it’s upsetting you, it’s worth sorting out.” 

“I’m not… upset, per say. Mostly just confused right now.” 

“About what?” 

“I mean… Who do I actually like? It has to be one of them, but which? Do I actually like Roger, or do I just think he’s cute? Or do I like him now and I’m over my feelings for Etta? How do I figure that out?” 

“Maybe you like both of them.” 

“What? No, you can only like one person at a time,” Bertie said. He looked like he was about to cry from a combination of frustration and confusion. 

“Uhh, polyamory?” 

“What?” 

Kate snorted. “Google it.” 

She turned back to her reading as Bertie pulled out his phone. He gasped softly a few minutes later. Kate smirked. “Find something you relate to?” 

“So this is like, normal?” He stared at her in stunned amazement, gripping his phone loosely by his side. 

“Yeah. You’ve seriously never heard of it before?” 

“No. I just thought that liking more than one person at a time was like… cheating. No one ever talks about this!” 

“I mean, it still can be,” Kate said. “Polyamory only works if you have open communication. And ongoing consent. Duh.” 

“So I don’t have to choose between them?” Bertie asked. 

She gave him a soft smile. “No, Bertie. You don’t.” 

He beamed back at her before his face dropped. “But… It doesn’t matter, does it? They’re still dating each other. I’m just in an even worse position now. I’m stuck in love with both of them. Even if they were to break up and one of them wanted to date me, I would still have feelings for the other one.” 

“But at least now you know what’s going on. That’s something.” 

“Yeah, I guess. I just don’t know whether or not it’s a good something.” 

“It’s good. Knowing what you’re feeling is the first step in dealing with it.” 

Bertie snorted. “Yeah. Now how the hell do I get rid of these feelings?” 

“I don’t think you do. I think you’ve just got to deal with them now,” Kate said. “Do you know when you’re seeing Roger next?” 

“Tomorrow. He’s finally got a bit of a break from work so I’m making him actually hang out with me for a change.” 

“He’s at the shop almost every day.” 

“Yeah, but he’s always studying,” Bertie said. “It’s not like he ignores me or anything, but we don’t actually get to spend any time together. He said he’d teach me poker.” 

“Don’t you already know how to play poker?” Kate asked. 

“Only vaguely.” 

“God, you’re gay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super short chapter this time, folks! Regular chapter lengths will return with Chapter 16!


	16. Chapter 16

“I should be working,” Roger said, watching Bertie search for his deck of cards. He had a midterm in a week that he needed to study for. A midterm two weeks before exams. That was definitely midterm. 

“Breaks are important,” Bertie said. “I’ve told you that before.” 

“I take breaks,” he said. 

Bertie snorted. “Yeah right. Besides, you said you’d actually hang out with me for a change. You don’t want to go back on your word, do you?” 

Roger huffed and sat down at the table. “You’re the worst.” 

“One hour,” he said, sitting down across from Roger and handing him the deck of cards to shuffle. “And then you can go back to scowling at your textbooks.” 

Roger kicked him lightly underneath the table. Bertie pouted. “I don’t scowl.” 

“You do!” His pout vanished as an uncontrollable grin spread across his face. “It’s like you want to bring the people you’re studying back to life so that you can kill them again for making your life difficult!” 

“Or for being literal monsters,” he said. “History is a lot of reading about monsters.” 

“That’s why you don’t go to school and instead just work with plants. Plants have never hurt anybody.” 

“Bertie, you know there’s poisonous plants, right?” 

“Don’t ruin this for me.” 

“What, Kate didn’t tell you about that already?” 

“Just teach me poker.” The pout had returned. 

“Okay, what do you know already?” Roger asked, trying not to smile. Bertie’s pout really was adorable. 

“Uhhh, something about five of a kind, aces are good, the guys who play it on tv look really good in vests,” Bertie said. 

He snorted. “I don’t disagree, but try to focus. We may be gay, but we can still win poker.” 

“Says you. If I’m up against a hot guy in a tux, I’m gonna let him win. And maybe a few other things.” 

Roger flicked a card at him. “Focus.” 

Bertie laughed. “Okay, okay. There’s betting on who has the best hand, right? And whoever’s the last one still betting wins?” 

“Right. So there’s a few different ways that you can win a round. Pair, two pair, three of a kind, four of a kind are all pretty straight forward. A straight is-“ 

“Well that’s not going to happen here,” Bertie said. 

Roger flicked another card at him. “Haha, very funny.” 

He grinned. “I’m hilarious and you know it.” 

“Hm. As I was saying, a straight is a hand of consecutive cards. So 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, for example. Flush is all cards of the same suit. Straight flush is-“ 

“When you tell a straight person that you’re gay and they get super awkward and weird?” 

Roger couldn’t help but laugh as he flicked a card at Bertie. “No!” 

“This is a very odd way of dealing,” he said, laughing. 

“Do you want me to teach you how to play poker or do you want to keep making gay jokes?” 

“I’d like to do both, thanks.” 

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I agreed to do this. And this is meant to be a break?” 

“It is a break! We’re having fun!” Bertie said. 

“Mmhm,” Roger said, skeptical. He couldn’t hide his smile though. 

“What else is there?” 

“A full house is when you have a three of a kind and a pair in the same hand. And a royal flush is when you get a straight flush that runs from a ten to an ace.” 

“And that’s the best hand?” 

“Yeah. Pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, royal flush.” 

“I will not remember that order. Let’s play.” 

Roger began dealing out the cards when they were suddenly plunged into darkness. Bertie let out a surprised yelp. “What just happened?” he said. 

“It’s probably just a power outage,” Roger said. “Or you forgot to pay your electricity.” 

“I never forget to pay a bill,” Bertie said, sounding insulted that Roger would doubt his responsibleness. 

“Then it’s just a power outage,” he said. “Do you have any candles?” 

Bertie nodded. 

“Go get those, I’ll unplug the appliances.” 

They returned to the table a few minutes later, Bertie with an armful of candles to burn. “Think we can still play by candlelight?” he asked. 

“I don’t see why not,” Roger said. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll find something else to do.” 

“Right,” Bertie mumbled, his ears turning red. 

“Other than homework. I promise.” He handed him his hand. 

They were about halfway through the game, Roger mercilessly kicking Bertie’s ass, when he noticed Bertie shivering. “Hey, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s just… Do you find it cold in here?” he asked. 

Now that he mentioned it, there was a difference in temperature from when he had first come in. “Your heating probably went out with the power. Do you have any blankets?” 

Bertie nodded and went to grab some. When he came back, they both agreed that it was too difficult to stay wrapped up in blankets and hold onto the cards, so they switched over to Battleship. 

“A2?” Bertie asked, his voice muffled as he tucked his nose under a blanket. 

“Miss.” Roger glanced over at him, worried. The apartment was definitely cold, but Bertie seemed to be taking it pretty hard. “Do you want my blankets as well?” 

He shook his head. “Then you’d be cold.” 

“Even just one of them.” 

“I’ll be fine,” he said. 

“You look like a popsicle.” 

“Do not.” 

“A little bit.” 

“I’m fine,” Bertie said, his voice cracking. 

Roger raised his eyebrows. “You alright?” 

Bertie frowned. “Yeah, I don’t know why my voice did that.” Another crack. 

Roger smiled slowly. “How many months have you been on T?” 

He counted on his fingers. “Six months. Why?” 

“Your voice is changing.” 

Bertie stared at him for a few seconds before a wide beam spread across his face. “My voice is changing!” 

“Yeah!” 

He laughed happily and bounced up and down in his chair. Roger felt the sudden urge to pinch his cheeks. Adorable. 

“My voice is changing! I’m going to get a deep voice that sounds super manly and hot!” 

“Well I don’t know about that last one,” Roger said. 

“Don’t ruin this for me!” Bertie said, still beaming widely. “I’m going to get a deep voice! Like, an actual deep voice!” 

“You’re going to crack so much until then.” 

“I don’t even care! I’ll have a deep voice! This is the greatest thing ever!” He laughed happily again. “I don’t even know why I’m laughing, I’m just! Ahh!” 

Roger laughed and Bertie’s grin widened. 

“This is really great, Bertie,” Roger said. 

“I know right! Do you know how long before it stops cracking?” 

“It’ll probably take a few months.” 

“Hm.” Bertie cleared his throat and when he spoke again, his voice was slightly lower. “How does this sound? Low and sexy?” 

Roger shook his head, amused. “You sounds just the same as any other time you try to make your voice lower. It’ll take a while before the effects actually show.” 

“Ugh, I know, but I’m just so impatient! My voice is so high and girly, I hate it!” 

He snorted. “Your voice is fine.” 

“Hmph.” Bertie slumped in his chair. “Do you ever think of how ironic it is that here we are, trying to get our bodies to be more masculine, while Kate and Etta are trying to get theirs less masculine? Why can’t we just give them our high voices and breasts? It’s so unfair.” 

“Hm. It’s definitely frustrating.” 

“I just want to look like a man, is that too much to ask?” Bertie yelled at the ceiling. 

“Hey, at least your voice is changing,” Roger said. “Mine’s still stuck at kindergartener.” 

“Yeah, but you’re also getting top surgery in two months. No complaining,” he said, knocking his foot against Roger’s under the table. 

“Careful,” he warned. “You’ll hit the table leg and knock over the candles.” 

“But then we’ll have a blazing fire to keep us warm,” whispered Bertie. 

“Okay, now your coldness is getting creepy.” He held open his arms. “Come here.” 

Roger wasn’t sure if he was just imagining things in the dim light of the candles, but he was pretty sure he saw Bertie’s entire face go red. “Wh-What?!” 

“Etta says I’m very warm. I’ll warm you up.” 

“I’m- I’m fine! I’ll just… Get a sweater from my room!” Bertie said before bolting off to his bedroom. 

“You’re already wearing one?” Roger questioned, his voice trailing off as Bertie left the room. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. Bertie got odder every day…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and/or feedback are always appreciated! I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks. Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!


	17. Chapter 17

Kate did not understand this reading. It was explaining the life cycle of poison ivy and it should make sense, but she had gotten lost somewhere around the second word and had absolutely no idea what it was saying three pages later. Something about roots? 

Her phone rang loudly and she jumped, banging her knee against the bottom of her desk. Rubbing her bruised knee, she answered Etta’s call. “Hey.” 

“Are you allergic to cats?” she asked. 

“Uh, nope. Why?” 

“Roger left me in charge of Bob while he and Lemaire are out of town.” 

“So? You love Bob,” Kate said. 

“I know. But I also have a massive test on Monday that I just found out about-“ 

“How did you only just find out about it?” 

“I may have forgotten to mark it in my calendar and just remembered now because someone emailed the class looking for notes,” Etta said, somewhat sheepishly. “Anyways, I need to focus on studying, but I’m really worried about keeping Bob out of trouble. It’ll probably be fine, I’d just feel a little less stressed if I knew there was somebody else here keeping an eye on him. I hate to ask, but would you mind coming over?” 

“Yeah, of course! Give me twenty?” 

Etta opened the door to her apartment with a small black kitten perched on top of her head. Bob meowed at Kate when he saw her, his tail twitching excitedly. 

“Seems like you’ve got it all under control,” Kate said, amused. 

“Haha,” Etta said sarcastically, closing the door behind her. “This works fine until I have to look at my notes and then he falls right off. And he doesn’t seem to like my shoulders or my lap.” 

“Well I can definitely keep him occupied.” She took Bob off of Etta’s head. He licked her chin, purring softly. “How did a grouch like Roger end up with such a cute kitten?” 

“I went with him to pick him out. He wanted to get an older, grouchier one, but that one tried to scratch me when I tried petting it, so he went with Bob instead,” she said, heading back to her bedroom. Kate followed. 

Etta’s room was exactly what one would expect Etta’s room to be. One of the walls was covered by bookcases, while her bed, desk, and dresser were shoved against the other walls, giving the room a slightly cramped feeling. The first time Kate was over, Etta had told her that she didn’t mind that it was small, because it meant that everything was within her reach, more or less. 

Kate took a seat on Etta’s bed, resisting the urge to burrow under the soft quilt covering it. Her bed looked so cozy, and was the one thing in her room that was actually tidy. It had enough room that Kate could starfish and there would probably still be enough space for Etta to lie next to her. Not that Etta would be lying next to her. There was no reason for Etta to lie next to her. They weren’t going to lie in bed together. That was ridiculous. 

_She has a boyfriend,_ Kate reminded herself. 

“So what’s your test on?” Kate asked. She scratched Bob behind the ears and he rubbed against her stomach. 

“Evolution. Super exciting, not at all ridiculously boring.” Etta rummaged around the piles of books and paper on her desk. “Do you perhaps see a textbook on it by any chance?” 

“It’s next to your sock monkey.” 

“Perfect!” Etta grabbed the book off of her dresser and settled down at her desk. She chewed on her bottom lip as she flipped through the pages and Kate tried not to think about her lip too much. It looked soft, like it would slide between her own perfectly. 

Not that it would. 

_Boyfriend. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. Not single._

“Do you want me to help you study?” Kate asked. 

Etta looked over eagerly. “Would you? That would be amazing, I don’t even know where to begin. I was honestly just flipping through this to find something that didn’t look really hard.” 

Kate laughed. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll take pity on you and save you from yourself.” 

Etta grinned and handed the textbook over to her. Bob promptly leaped on top of it and curled up for a nap. Etta giggled. “Guess that’s out then.” 

Kate set the book down beside her gently so as not to wake Bob. “Guess we’ll have to start with your class notes then.” 

“Ah. Yes. My class notes.” 

Kate raised her eyebrows. Etta smiled sheepishly and passed her a notebook. She flipped through it. While there were some hastily scribbled notes, a good portion of Etta’s notebook was filled with doodles. 

“Well these aren’t… terrible,” Kate said. 

“I cannot emphasize enough how horribly boring this class is,” Etta said. 

“Let’s work on a rewards system then.” 

She leaned forward in her chair, interested. “Ooo, I like the sound of that.” 

“For every answer you get right, you get… What junk food do you have?” 

“I have a bag of all dressed chips somewhere.” 

“You get one chip. And then at the end of the study session, we’ll order in pizza.” 

Etta’s eyes lit up. “You’ve got yourself a deal!” 

She ran out of the room to grab the bag of chips and Kate flopped down backwards on the bed, running a hand down her face in frustration. What was she doing? This was a bad idea. Etta was so cute, it was overpowering. Kate could barely get through a short conversation with her without thinking about what her lips would taste like, what it would feel like to run her hands through her hair, glide them over her hips… 

“Alright, I’ve got them!” Etta burst back into the room, triumphantly clutching a bag of chips in her hand. She blinked at Kate. “You okay?” 

She sat up. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, just a bit tired. You know how it is.” 

Etta frowned. “Do you want to take a nap? I can just study by myself, it’s fine.” 

“No, I want to do this. You need the help,” Kate said, trying to make her tone teasing enough that Etta wouldn’t press the issue. 

Luckily it worked. She stuck her tongue out at Kate. “Fine, see if I give you any of my delicious chips.” 

“Aw, come on.” 

“Rewards system,” Etta teased. “What are you being rewarded for?” 

“Hopefully for helping you pass your test.” 

She pouted. “Good point. Fine, you can have one whenever I do.” 

Four hours later, the two girls were exhausted and ready to throw Etta’s textbook out the window. Bob had long since woken up from his nap and had taken to batting a toy mouse around the bedroom, occasionally needing to be saved from a pile of laundry. 

“Ready for pizza?” Kate asked, laying upside down on Etta’s bed. 

“Please,” she groaned. She had pulled the drawstrings on her hoodie tightly so that only her mouth and nose were showing. It was distracting to say the least. 

Etta pulled up the order screen on her laptop. “Is veggie good with you?” 

“Veggie is fantastic.” Kate was honestly a little surprised that Etta’s default order was so… normal. She had half been expecting her to order something completely ridiculous. Like gummy bear pancakes. 

The order was going to take about half an hour, so Etta pulled up a movie on her computer. She sat down on the bed next to Kate, their arms and legs pressed together. It was like an electric current coursing through the right side of her body. Etta got sleepy twenty minutes into the movie and tucked her head into Kate’s shoulder, her eyes fluttering gently shut. Kate’s heart stuttered in her chest. 

Oh yeah. She was definitely screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr @pillowcreeks. Comments and feedback are appreciated. Hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @thenightcrowd. And again, feedback is greatly appreciated!


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